It´s all for L.O.V.E

Children´s Day, January 22nd : How Many Children?

2012-01-22T08:22:00.001+01:00

Picture courtesy

How Many Children?

how many children
are hungry this morning?
how many children
without a home?

how many children
with only one parent?
how many children
.....with none?

how many children
faced with no future?
how many children
thrown to the side?

how many children....

and how many know?

credits: Eric Cockrell

Remember

.....and what about the child in your neighborhood?

Happy New Year 2012

2011-12-31T11:37:00.001+01:00

Blue-moon-photo credits to: Tamas Landanyi, TWAN

The new years come,

The old years go,

We know we dream,

We dream we know.

~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Dear visitors, friends and MJfamily, the Its-all-for-LOVE-webteam
wants to thank you for constantly supporting us to carry Michael´s
vision into the future and for sharing your love with us in 2011.

We wish you that 2012 will turn out to be

a HAPPY NEW YEAR
filled with
peace, faith, major love and hope

for you and your beloved ones.

May the universal LOVE free you of all weight and pain of life...

Give LOVE on Christmas Day

2011-12-24T22:02:00.001+01:00

How about LOVE as a gift for Christmas? Yes I know is not a new idea. Everybody is saying it. But how about listening a bit?

I talked to some of the children I work with and asked what would they like to receive as an "unwrappable" gift. Some of them avoided at first the answer or responded quickly listing all the toys or other wishes they had. But we managed to get over such conversational stoppers and this is what they answered:

Dinner with their family

Spending (more) time at home (or elsewhere) with their loved ones

A friend (or more if it's possible)

It's not a big list. And is not too complicated to make it happen.
And there is a category of children who do not or cannot communicate with spoken language. I "talk" to them day after day and I know what they would what is for people to see beyond their difficulties and accept them as they are - beautiful and loving.

And maybe these would be the best gifts we could offer ourselves.
And maybe we can all stop blaming the materialist world as being something from outside of us.

I believe that be paying more attention to all these gifts that cannot be wrapped we will be able to find the material gifts more meaningful as we will see the love, care and attention behind them.

I know there is a whole battle out there about Santa and what to tell children, and how all this is just a huge conspiracy to make us buy more and forget our traditions and/or God.
What I believe is that it is each of us' responsibility to teach our children to see the meaning of Christmas.

Or maybe we should allow our children to be our teachers.
This is how a 9 year old student from Germany explains the meaning of Christmas:

"Jesus came into the world in a place where no one ever would have expected him. Christmas shows us that we can find God and his love where we expect it the least."

Tomorrow morning I'll be unwrapping with great joy all the gifts I'll find under the tree. And I know my family will do the same (especially me 3 years old nephew). But what I will love most about it is that we will be together. I know I'll get many hugs and kisses. I know I have the love of my family and my friends.
And I will appreciate even more the gifts I've been given until now.

The "It's All For L.O.V.E." blog team wish you

Merry Christmas ! Feliz Navidad ! Froehliche Weihnachten ! 聖誕快樂 ! Craciun Fericit ! Feliz Natal ! Selamat Natal ! メリークリスマス！Buon Natale !

Childrens Day, December 22nd - Happy Christmas

2011-12-21T21:35:00.005+01:00

Millions of people are getting ready to celebrate the birth of a child that brought hope and light into the darkness of the world ...

Since the children from today - and sometimes the inner child from adults - still bring back hope, love, faith and peace back into our world our team would like to share with you this meaningful candle story.

Thank you for all of your love and hope you are spreading in your personal life.
May you always keep your inner child alive, because WE are the children...

Take our heartfelt thanks for constantly supporting our It´s-all-for-LOVE-webteam and sharing your love with us.

Click on the star to enlarge it

Children´s Day - November 2011 - Paulo Coelho Institute

2011-11-21T06:33:00.001+01:00

According to UNICEF statistics, about 42% of Brazilian children live in poverty. Also, approximately 1/8 of all Brazilian children live on the streets. The causes of child poverty in Brazil are complex.

Being an international webteam we are living on four continents (still missing someone from Africa) - but no one can give first-hand-informations about Brazilian children poverty. Because we have learned that availaible information may be subject to misinterpretation we usually count on UNICEF data to access the situation of children all around the world.

Unicef´s statics clearly show that Brazil´s more than 10 million children benefit from reduced infant mortality rate and increased access to school.

To accelerate this progress WE have to increase our support. Brazil is still responding to two floods in 2011. One of them (in January 2011) is seen as one of the worst natural disasters in Brazilian history.

Today the It´s-All-For-Love-webteam wants to turn your attention to a project (which is not meant to be a charity) from Paulo Coelho, world-famous native brazilian writer, lyricist, novelist and simply impressing humanitarian. Paulo kindly allowed us to reblog his article about the Paulo Coelho Institut and we thank him for showing this courtesy. Even more we want to thank him for being such a giving and loving person, who always watches things with his heart and who inspires millions with his work.

In his book "Aleph" Paulo shares with us an astonishing, very beautiful explanation of universal love.

“...all the lovers in the world are like different rivers flowing into the same lake, where they meet and are transformed into a single love that becomes rain and blesses the earth.”

“I receive your love and I give you mine. Not the love of a man to a woman, not the love of a father for a child, not the love of Gos for his creatures, but a Love with no name and explanations, like a river that follows a particular course but simply flows onwards. A love that asks for nothing and gives nothing in return. I will never be yours and you will never be mine, nevertheless, I can honestly say: I love you, I love you. I love you.”

~Paulo Coelho

We love you, Paulo.

Paulo Coelho Institute

I would like to bring your attention to the 430 children needing our support.

The PAULO COELHO Institute is a non-profit-making institution financed largely by my royalties.

My aim was for it not to be a charity, but an institute to give opportunities to the underprivileged and ostracized members of Brazilian society.

Thus, the Institute concentrates its funds on:

a) Children

b) The elderly

At present, the PAULO COELHO Institute provides financial support to Creche Escola Meninos da Luz, Lar Paulo de Tarso (in the Pavão-Pavãozinho favela, Rio de Janeiro), who look after these 430 children.

In 1996 we started with 80 children, and now with our continued effort we are supporting 400 children.

The real warriors behind the project are: Isabella de Moraes and Yolanda de Moraes Rego.

If you would like to make a donation to Lar Paulo de Tarso:

Email Belina Antunes : instituto@paulocoelho.com.br.

Telephone : (5521) 2522-9524, 2247-0810 or 2247-8145.

If you would like to visit the site, please go to : http://www.meninosdeluz.org.br

If you have Google Earth installed in your computer, key in: Rua Saint Roman 149, Rio de Janeiro 22071, RJ, Brasil and you will see the favela Pavão-Pavãozinho (the houses scattered by the hill).

Thanking you in advance for any support you may give us.

Thanks on behalf of these warriors, Isabella and Yolanda.

Thank you on behalf of the 430 children.

Thank you on behalf of my country, for the difference you can make.

Love,

Paulo

Last - but not least let´s give this blogpost "caring about the children from Brazil" the "MJ-touch":

You´ll all remember the video "They don´t really care about us", which was shot in Brazil, a favela in Rio de Janeiro called Dona Marta and in Salvador Da Bahia . State authorities tried to ban all production over fears the video would damage their image, the area and prospects of staging the 2004 Olympics. Still, the residents of the area were happy to see the singer, hoping their problems would be made visible to a wider audience.

The making of TDCAU in Rio de Janeiro 1996

Alas, the Brazilian Long Version from "They don´t really care about us" on the internet is only availaible to certain countries.