Guardian and Observer charity appeal: still time to help child refugees

Once again, the generosity of Guardian and Observer readers has left us humbled and inspired. We do not yet have a final figure but we do know your donations to our 2016 charity appeal in support of refugee children amount to over £1.6m: an incredible response.

We launched our campaign a month ago to raise money for three fantastic charities – Help Refugees, Safe Passage, and the Children’s Society. Our objective was two-fold: to provide practical, humanitarian assistance to refugees; and to make a stand for compassion, tolerance and justice in the face of weariness and hostility towards those displaced by war and oppression.

You answered the call magnificently: more than 16,000 of you donated to the appeal. You told us you gave because you were horrified by events in Syria, or moved by the misery of the refugee camps in Greece, or because you felt ashamed by the UK government’s timidity in the face of a global humanitarian crisis.

The appeal came at the end of a tumultuous and in many ways demoralising year, from the divisions laid bare by the Brexit referendum to the election of Donald Trump, and some of you told us that giving to the appeal was a way to make a stand for kindness, empathy and human rights at a time when these values seemed to be in retreat.

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