Starting on 1 June and continuing all month long, Kids Entertainment Professionals for Young Refugees (KEPYR), the award-winning children’s media charity organisation, will host an array of online and live events around the world to raise funds in aid of UNICEF’s work on behalf of over 850,000 children displaced by the recent devastating earthquakes in Syria and Türkiye.
With 2.5 million children in Türkiye and 3.7 million in Syria in need of continued humanitarian assistance due to the earthquakes, UNICEF has been on the ground in the region, bringing temporary shelter, nutrition and medical aid, schooling, and psychosocial support to affected children and their families. Their Immediate Response Plan in Syria remains just 41 per cent funded while in Türkiye the number is 56 per cent.
KEPYR’s month-long campaign will consist of a mix of both fundraising and awareness-raising events including an online fundraiser, live gatherings in Los Angeles, New York, Mexico City, and Wellington, NZ, and a special Mandalorian-themed auction of original art by renowned comics and animation artists like Dan Brereton, Dave Johnson, Walt Simonson, and Bret Blevins. Commenting on the choice of theme, auction organiser Henry Gilroy said, “Once a child refugee himself, the Mandalorian grew into a noble bounty hunter and protector of Grogu, an adorable force-sensitive child refugee in need. Who better than this heroic pair to bring us all together to raise awareness and deliver aid to our most vulnerable children?”
Supporters are also invited to attend a virtual UNICEF briefing on the urgent humanitarian needs in Syria and Türkiye nearly four months after the devastating earthquakes on Wednesday, 7 June at 11 am Eastern time. The hour-long event will include live reporting from on-the-ground aid workers and other UNICEF representatives, with opportunities to ask questions via chat.
All proceeds from these events will go to UNICEF USA to support the organisation’s relief work in Syria and Türkiye.
KEPYR president and founder Grant Moran said, “The world was already experiencing the worst child refugee crisis since World War II when KEPYR started in 2017. Since that time, with the invasion of Ukraine, the catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, and now the civil war in Sudan, the number of refugees and displaced children in the world has exploded. But so has support for our work in the kid’s media community, both on a grassroots level and with increasing support and cooperation from studios, networks, and production companies all over the world. That growth is very exciting to see – and we’ve still only scratched the surface of the good we can all do together. Look for more, bigger, and better from this community every year.”
KEPYR was founded by industry professionals in 2017 to spread awareness in the children’s media community about the global child refugee crisis, the worst since WWII, and to rally support for UNICEF’s heroic work serving displaced children everywhere. Its board of directors is comprised of Grant Moran, Yang Chang, Aurora Simcovich, Johnny Hartmann, Scott Gray, and Monica Dollive. Serving on KEPYR’s advisory board are Christopher Keenan, Jean Thoren, Greg Payne, Jo Kavanagh-Payne, Maca Rotter, Danielle Gillis, Ryan Gagerman, Martin Baynton, Gushi Sethi, Sabrina Propper, Dave Palmer, Sebastian Rich, and Baman Rusby.