5th Schafhof Festival for UNICEF

Supporting children in need in conflict areas throughout the world has been an endeavour close to the heart of Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff, deputy chairman of UNICEF Germany, and her family for many years now. In 2003 Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff started the popular Schafhof Festival for UNICEF, a charity event attended by tens of thousands of visitors, as well as many invited celebrities and sponsors from the world of business, politics, entertainment, sports and culture. “As a result of the Schafhof Festival we have succeeded in convincing numerous private donors, as well as partners from the world of business, the media and public life as a whole, of the need to help the poorest people in the world,” explained Linsenhoff. Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff and her team therefore set about preparing the Schafhof Festival 2009 over the past months with a great deal of enthusiasm to focus once again on children in need. The Festival is about much more than fund-raising, though. The many visitors – adults and children – are inspired to embrace this common purpose and made aware of the need to help others. “The Festival, UNICEF and the idea of solidarity are spread beyond our local area.”

In the past weeks and months numerous intensive and constructive meetings have been held with partners and sponsors of the Schafhof Festival. The conclusion reached by all was to postpone the Festival, so that it could then be organised on the same scale as before.
“We responded to the request of many of our partners not to carry on with the Festival given the current economic and financial situation,” remarked Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff, who would also like to thank everyone expressly for their many years of confidence and commitment. “I am all the more delighted by the very generous donations we have received this year for the UNICEF projects that are so dear to my heart. Our express thanks must therefore go to the many people, our partners and sponsors for their readiness to make a donation, even in times of financial difficulty.” It means that this year UNICEF is again in a position to support specific projects. “Particularly in times like these it is more important than ever not to forget the children in real need of our help,” says Linsenhoff.