With a result far exceeding our expectations, the Christmas charity project to benefit children and adolescents in Bhutan concluded in January. Yesterday, thanks to your overwhelming support, we were able to hand Save the Children Germany e.V. a cheque for the amount of 82,000 Euro. Compared to a similar promotion last year, together we were able to more than double the previous charitable contribution.

In addition to setting up ‘Remote Classrooms’ in the isolated mountain regions of Bhutan as originally planned, the world’s largest independent children’s rights organization can now implement further aid projects in the country.

The ‘Remote Classrooms’ project is not just about building schools. Save the Children will ensure that children and adolescents receive good education and healthcare. Furthermore, families will be educated about the problems teenagers are facing and Save the Children will train 40 pupil advisors to be involved in three-day workshops held by the children’s rights organization at higher education institutions throughout the country.

Thanks to our donation, two editions of a youth guidebook will also be published. The guidebook will provide young people with information about career prospects and other topics. In addition to this, Save the Children will establish two youth centres as well as employ and train two caretakers for adolescents.

Due to its position in the middle of the Himalayas, Bhutan was largely isolated from the rest of the world until recently. Kathrin Wieland, German Executive Director of Save the Children, visited the country two years ago and knows the problems there: “In Bhutan, there are suddenly children surfing the Internet and zapping through 400 television channels. Their parents, on the other hand, are people who haven’t learnt to read or write. They have never in their lives been bombarded with advertising. In other words, what we have here is a clash of two ages of civilisation.”

With their on-site projects, Save the Children will assist children and their families in this transformation process, reducing the by-products which negatively affect the living conditions of adolescents, such as pollution, drug abuse, and crime.

We started the charity project in mid-December 2010 and the exclusive virtual mounts were avaliable for purchase in the item shop until the end of January. All proceeds after VAT and fixed third-party costs are now funding the projects of Save the Children in Bhutan. Runewaker, the Taiwanese developer of Runes of Magic, waived its share of the sales for the mounts to support the charity effort on their part.

On handing over the cheque, Seth Iorio, Member of the Executive Board of Frogster Interactive Pictures AG, commented on the outcome: “We have been impressed and inspired by the work of Save the Children in the mountain regions of Bhutan from the beginning. We are very happy that, through the support of our players, we can significantly extend the scope of our cooperative projects.”

Kathrin Wieland, Executive Director of Save the Children Germany e.V., was surprised and delighted at the great generosity of the computer game players: “I am very happy about the engagement of Frogster and its players, which allows us to clear a path for these children to a positive future.” 

All of this would not have been possible without the aid of our Community members. A heartfelt "Thank you" goes out to everyone who supported this project.

Your Runes of Magic Team