Fly A Kite This Summer

Save the Children get the festival season off to a flying start

This summer thousands of families and festival goers across the UK will take part in Save the Children’s kite flying festival.

Kite flying is hugely popular with children across Asia and the Middle East where children and adults spend hours on the roofs of buildings flying their kites. Save the Children will be popping up at family friendly festivals encouraging people to sign up to Save the Children’s EVERY ONE campaign to help save millions of children’s lives, and to make a kite as a visible demonstration of their support.

Over the course of the summer, at four of the UK's major festivals, Save the Children is aiming to see over 10,000 kites flown in support of their EVERY ONE campaign. By flying a kite high over the heads of the crowds, festival goes will be helping to raise awareness of Afghanistan, the country where children currently face the worst chance of survival anywhere in the world.

Afghanistan, famous for kite flying, is currently one of the worst places in the world to be a child. The country has experienced decades of natural disasters and is torn apart by conflict. Afghanistan is in a fragile state with a shattered health system. There is a huge shortage of trained medical staff. Hospitals have limited equipment and medicine leaving the majority of people in Afghanistan extremely vulnerable, and children are dying of easily preventable diseases such as diarrhoea and pneumonia.

Jude Bridge, Save the Children, said "A staggering one in four children die before they reach their fifth birthday in Afghanistan – that is 850 children a day - the worst rate of any country in the world. We want festival goers to support our call to the Prime Minister to rally world leaders to do more to stop children dying of easily preventable diseases. The thousands of kites in the sky will be a visible sign of their support. This activity is easy, it's fun, and it means an enormous amount. Come and find us at the festivals. Let's go fly a kite!"

Which and where in the Festivals you can go to fly a kite for children:

Shoreditch Festival, July 17th http://www.shoreditchfestival.org.uk/  

WOMAD, July 23rd/25th July http://womad.org/ Location: Charity Area

Bestival, July 30th/1st August http://www.campbestival.co.uk/ Location: Kid’s Field

The Big Chill, 5th/8th August http://www.bigchill.net/festival Location: The Lakes Field