We recognise that many Philes in less financially privileged parts of the world have been unable to participate in this or any other thank you campaign as a result of fiscal inequity. Even such a token amount as $5US is a week's pay in some parts of the world - even technology-rich ones. We know of Philes in Eastern Europe who fit this description, and we're sure there are others. We've been trying to figure out a way to address this, and we think we have a solution.

If you fit this category, here's how you can be part of Thank You Annabeth. Simply donate an amount you can afford to a children's hospital in your own country and let us know who you donated to and how much. We'll add you to the donor list. In addition, one lucky participant in this program will receive one of the autographed copies of the magazine. That will be decided by ballot.

SPOTLIGHT: UNICEF, Hong Kong

There has been a lot of interest in the Equity Program, and today we're highlighting one of the benefitting charities.

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was created by the United Nations General Assembly in 1946 to meet the emergency needs of children in the aftermath of World War II in Europe. UNICEF is the only UN organisation dedicated exclusively to children. UNICEF works closely with other United Nations agencies, governments and NGOs to provide community-based service in primary health care, nutrition, basic education, and safe water and sanitation to the developing world. It aims to reduce the terrible toll the lack of such services takes on the world's youngest citizens. Find out more about the activities of UNICEF in Hong Kong here.

Webmasters - We Need You

We would appreciate the help of webmasters of significant foreign-language websites in spreading the word about this program. We can read simple emails in French, German, Italian and Russian, but language need not really be a barrier to participation. All we really need is name/country/hospital. If at all possible we'd like that information in the Roman alphabet, not Cyrillic/Hebrew/Mandarin/etc, but we will work around that issue if necessary.

People In Other Countries

The Equity Program is geared primarily to people whose region's exchange rate and cost of living make even token donations literally impossible. For instance, the minimum monthly wage in Russia (which has an active online Phile population) is 132 rubles, which is about US$4.25. We're told the average monthly wage in St Petersburg is US$25. These are the sorts of regions the program targets. People in less disadvantaged regions (eg Australia, New Zealand, UK, Western Europe) who have had difficulty donating because of the large ancillary costs involved in doing so (eg, Western Union fees) may participate in the same way in order to get onto the donor lists, but will not go in the ballot for the magazine, since we believe the auction prices will be within an affordable range for people in those regions.