Together with pigeon fanciers, PiPa donated 7.000 euro’s to Unicef for the earthquake China.

Last year PiPa transferred 7000 euro’s to the account of Unicef so that they could contribute to the reconstruction of the affected region in China following the heavy earthquake. The official handing-over of the cheque took place last week at the head office of Unicef Belgium in Brussels.

PiPa’s auction season runs from August up to and including May the following year. The last auction of the sales season (in May) involves a few pigeons that have been donated to PiPa by the absolute top of the pigeon sport being auctioned. PiPa retains a portion to cover the costs and another portion is used to benefit the charity. Last year the charity was for the earthquake in China.

PiPa was earlier invited to the headquarters of Unicef in Belgium, but because of the busy work schedule it was only possible to hand over the cheque (that was donated last year) symbolically to the General Director Yves Willemot last year. This was done by 2 people from PiPa, namely Board of Director’s chairman Thomas Van Cauwenberghe and Chief Executive Officer Nikolaas Gyselbrecht.
PiPa was fantastically received in Brussels-Anderlecht (Unicef has its offices in the headquarters of L'Oréal near to the Erasmus hospital and has 35 permanent staff who work at making a better world) by Mrs. Sonja Abeels and director Willemot. We knew it already, but this visit confirmed yet again the professionalism of organisations such as Unicef (a striking example of the trust in Unicef by big organisations : It is the first time in the history of the football club Barcelona that a sponsor is displayed in big letters on the shirts, and that is Unicef, and the most remarkable thing of all : it is a reversed sponsor, because it is Barcelona who pays Unicef !)

Here below you can see a map of the regions that were hit by the earthquake. It is now exactly 1 year ago that this terrible catastrophe happened and millions of people were affected in one way or another.

PiPa doesn’t take all the credit, it wouldn’t be possible to make the donation without the help of the people who offered the special pigeons last year, or without the help of the people who bid for the pigeons and those who actually bought the pigeons in the end.

The last auction of 2009 is still running and will end this weekend. You can find the pigeons offered for sale by choosing auctions in the main menu or by immediately going to : http://pipa.be/toppigeons/

A portion will now be donated in Europe for the promotion of the pigeon sport here. Worldwide the pigeon sport has generally not suffered globally, but when we look at the West-European countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany etc. we see that the number of members is systematically decreasing and the members are aging. It is the task of the national federations to breath new life into the pigeon sport, but it is not so simple. In the Netherlands the foundation PPN was set up and its activities include placing pigeon lofts in schools and at children’s farms etc. These initiatives are quite successful. PiPa will make a choice from a number of pigeon-promotion-projects so as PPN, who will all have a share of the money. Clear and explicit information about this will be posted on PiPa at the appropriate time. Transparency is of great importance.

We regret for this reason that the KBDB has never communicated how, and for which charities, the many millions, that for the last decennia, through pigeon auctions, has landed in the hands of the "Promotion fund" of the Belgian pigeon, has been spent.