Champions For Children

RANGERS have joined an elite group of clubs after teaming up with UNICEF in a ground-breaking charity collaboration.

The Rangers Charity Foundation became the latest to team up with the international children's charity, adding their name to a list including the likes of Barcelona, Manchester United and AC Milan.

Charity Foundation and Club Chairman Sir David Murray, Charity Trustee and Rangers Chief Executive Martin Bain and Charity Champion and Club Captain Barry Ferguson joined UNICEF UK Director of Corporate Fundraising Anne Shinkwin to formalise the agreement today by signing a pledge to raise £300,000 by 2011.

UNICEF will be the Rangers Charity Foundation's International Charity Partner for an initial 3 years in which period the Foundation will fund a UNICEF education project in India across 15 states, reaching over 45,000 children in over 200 schools.

In India, approximately 5 million children aged between 6 and 11 miss out on a school education. The majority of these are girls with many of them coming from poor, disadvantaged communities.

Many schools have inadequate learning facilities and teaching materials, with classrooms often over crowded and children unable to complete their studies.

Money raised by the partnership will support a public campaign aimed at increasing school admissions, buy books, teaching materials and classroom materials, improve the learning environment and teaching facilities in over 150 schools, fund a campaign that identifies and helps young girls who have been unable to complete primary school, provide training to teachers and improve the water and sanitation facilities in over 200 schools.

Club and Charity Foundation Chairman Sir David Murray was pleased to see the collaboration set up.

He said: "It is a huge landmark for the Rangers Charity Foundation to establish this partnership with UNICEF and join some of the biggest clubs in the world as one of their football partners.

"Rangers is a club known across the globe and it is great to see our charitable activities expanding on an international scale, whilst we increase our work at a more local level in Scotland.

"The Foundation launched a Community Grants Scheme in 2007 and recently announced a new Community Charity Partner. We are also set to unveil a National Partner within the next few weeks.

"Our agreement with UNICEF adds a different dimension to our charitable work and builds upon the activities Rangers already delivers to communities throughout Scotland, not just within the charitable sector but also in education, health and wellbeing and social equality."

UNICEF UK Executive Director David Bull was also delighted to seal the partnership with Rangers.

He said: "I am delighted that Rangers has chosen to support UNICEF's education work in India. Access to education is something we often take for granted. For thousands of children, this project will bring the precious opportunities an education can offer a step closer."

UNICEF is the world's leading children's organisation, reaching young people in more than 150 countries around the world.

It works with local communities and governments across the globe to help every child realise their full potential by providing health care, nutrition, education and by protecting children affected by crises including war, natural disasters and HIV and AIDS.

The partnership with Rangers will be the first relationship of its kind for the charity in Scotland and Charity Foundation Champion Barry Ferguson will head to India to see the partnership in action

He said: "The education project in India is an exciting development for the Foundation and I have agreed to visit the area to see first-hand the work that is being done.

"Everyone at the Club is very proud of this new venture and I believe that we can make a real difference and that the power of sport can help us to spread UNICEF's message of hope for vulnerable children."

The new partnership is one that Anne Shinkwin, UNICEF UK Director of Corporate Fundraising is hoping will help to raise both awareness and funds.

She said: "To have the commitment of Rangers, a club of international standing, is testament to the importance we both place on giving children the opportunity of an education and a future.

"Together, our partnership will make a real and decisive difference to whole communities across India. We look forward to many successful years working together."

The Foundation's appointment of an International Charity Partner comes as a result of a strategic review of its activities following the growing success of its charitable and fundraising concerns.

It also aims to match this level of funding within Scotland, donating £100,000 per year to local projects via a National Charity Partner and Community Charity Partner and the Foundation's ongoing Community Grants Scheme.

It broke through the £1million barrier in 2007 in terms of cash and in-kind donations made to charities and other worthwhile organisations.

Fairbridge in Scotland has already been named as the Foundation's Community Partner for this season and the new National Charity Partner will be announced in due course.

Well done.

In debt, lose title, in more debt, get to the verge of collapse, hand over £300,000 to charity, and then fold.

Aye, very good sunshine. One defeat, and you lot think it's done, something you slated us for.

And the next thing I'd like to see happen is a UNICEF Trophy (pre-season tournament)

Rangers, Man Utd, Barcelona, AC Milan. Hold it at a different ground each year, then repeat. Would bring in a decent amount of cash for charity on a yearly basis, and would give us and the others, an exciting pre-season to boot!

Edit to add I'd also have the UNICEF logo put on the childrens Rangers tops, since Carling can't go on it.

Reeks of desperation, take more than this to get rid of your horrid image.

Well done, but this has nothing to do with football.

Moving it to GN.

Aye, very good sunshine. One defeat, and you lot think it's done, something you slated us for.

And the next thing I'd like to see happen is a UNICEF Trophy (pre-season tournament)

Rangers, Man Utd, Barcelona, AC Milan. Hold it at a different ground each year, then repeat. Would bring in a decent amount of cash for charity on a yearly basis, and would give us and the others, an exciting pre-season to boot!

Edit to add I'd also have the UNICEF logo put on the childrens Rangers tops, since Carling can't go on it.

It certainly would, and this is pretty much the entire reason for the pr exercise. Rangers image is at an all time low so................. lets trot out the children and see if that stops people hating us!

Sorry to dissappoint but I think peoples hatred of you lot is at such a depth that you couldn't find anything that would stop their loathing.

Barry Ferguson will be the gers man in India....

The c**t can hardly read or write so it's anybody guess as to how his first speech
will go down in India...

http://www.rangers.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Ne...1415075,00.html

Well done Rangers, always nice to help out the community and Children, and at the same time generating some much needed good PR.

Well done, but this has nothing to do with football.

Moving it to GN.

I hate rangers but celtic fans please give it a rest will you!it's not a fucking competition!this is a good thing for UNICEF no matter its motives.

childrens organisation in an emerging market?

An emerging market? yes. A country with vast, vast poverty? YES.

Yes, like Malawi, Haiti, Ethiopia, Nepal, etc, etc, etc.....

I don't understand why Rangers should be allowed to decide which country deserves their donation to UNICEF. That's like me donating to dogs for the deaf and insisting that my Mum be the sole benefactor.

I don't think the is really the point, yes India is a growing economy but does have widespread abject poverty. Lets say rangers choose to give to Haiti would you say that they should not give to Haiti because Malawi is a poorer country.

I don't think you understand the point. Had Rangers decided to simply donate £300,000 to UNICEF I'd have been absolutely delighted. However they aren't donating £300,000 - instead they're charity foundation has pledged to raise £300,000 by 2011 and second they are telling UNICEF that the money has to be spent in India, in a market that Rangers have been actively targeting for the last three or four years.

I know it's not unique. There's plenty of Christian charities for example that refuse to hand over funds to those that need them without them agreeing to convert to Christianity first. I just doubt the ethical credentials of those who do this kind of thing.

Ludicrous that this thread has been moved here.


As the wishy washy tims said earlier, this story smacks of desperation on the huns' part:

"is that a bandwagon? park it outside Ipox till we get some photos with Martin Bain's swarthy, sweaty, disingenuous grin".

Granted, its perhaps marginally more convincing than their last effort (the DUP man hysterically bewailing "IRA chants") but it still represents empty, grasping posturing. Eagle eyed viewers might remember ten years ago David Murray parading a hun youth player named 'Jaswinder Juttla' for the same dubious reasons, as a response to Fergus McCann's 'bhoys against bigotry' on that occasion. Jaswinder - an extremely limited defender - was loudly trumpeted by Murray as the first Asian player in Scotland (overlooking Celtic's Mohammed Salim) and then fixed up with a scarcely-deserved move to willing patsys Morton, purely for PR reasons.

The huns simply have paid (on credit terms) for UNICEF's name the way william hill bookmakers have paid for breast cancer care's on their latest TV adverts. That is, for cynical, self-seeking reasons.

Just as the exploitative purveyors of poverty/misery aim to hit vulnerable women at home on their own during the day with cuddly adverts exhorting them to ignore their hungry children and scale the degenerative and pernicious depths of 'internet bingo', so the huns fervently wish to persuade us of their non-racism. Of course neither volpine (if not lupine) institution is prepared to admit that their gravy train exists only so long as there is a pliable band of ignorant huns/addicts to support them. Naturally neither is prepared to upset the apple cart.

Of course, the other cheek of the old firm arse is equally as bad: A recent newspaper article highlighted how some internet Celtic fans thought seriously ill, hopeless alcoholic Paul Gascoigne might sadly die in the near future!