OMNI Television and other Ethnic Media, Organizations Team Up for Multicultural Canada for Haiti Collective Appeal for UNICEF to run on OMNI stations in BC, Alberta and Ontario

TORONTO (January 29, 2010) - OMNI Television today confirmed its partnership in Multicultural Canada for Haiti, a collective fundraising appeal to benefit UNICEF Canada, and announced that its multilingual programming will play a key role. OMNI’s initiatives will encourage donations from viewers of its language programming, in complement with fellow partners in Multicultural Canada for Haiti: CHIN (Radio & Television); Yee Hong Foundation, Bell Canada and the Canadian Ethnic Media Association, and UNICEF. Ultimately, funds raised by Multicultural Canada for Haiti will be directed towards meeting the urgent needs of Haiti’s children, a key part of UNICEF’s relief efforts.

"OMNI is proud to help galvanize ethnic communities in support of Multicultural Canada for Haiti and further reaffirm the importance of Canada’s ethnic media in times of humanitarian crisis," says Madeline Ziniak, National Vice President of OMNI Television. "Five OMNI stations in three provinces will reach out to viewers in their language of comfort to encourage donations, with one of our first objectives being to help recruit multilingual operators for the call centre."

Starting Saturday, January 30, OMNI and other participating broadcast partners will run a crawl during language programming to invite viewers to support Multicultural Canada for Haiti. There will be two numbers to call, toll-free: 1-888-800-0268 (Canada and US) and Toronto local: 416-296-9595. Both lines will be active for 21 hours this weekend and multilingual volunteer operators will staff the phones in various shifts throughout this time.

• Saturday, January 30th at 8:00 p.m. EST to Sunday, January 31st at 3:00 a.m. EST;
• Sunday, January, 31st at 10:00 a.m. EST to 12 midnight EST.

Contributions may also be made online at www.unicef.ca/multicultural or in person at BMO branches across Canada to account # 3974 1021667.

In addition to promoting Multicultural Canada for Haiti during weekend language programming, OMNI has donated production of two, 2 ½ minute public service announcements. One spot will air leading up to the weekend campaign and the other, during. Both feature a plea from Nigel Fisher, President and CEO of UNICEF Canada along with information on how to donate. For every dollar donated by individual Canadians to UNICEF Canada, the Canadian International Development Agency will contribute a dollar to relief efforts in Haiti.

Multicultural Canada for Haiti is seeking volunteer telephone operators from no less than 38 language groups. Anyone wanting further information on how to volunteer or which languages are required is invited to contact Ida Tsang, either at 416-737-0660 or multiculturalcanadahaiti@gmail.com.

Rogers Wireless and Fido customers can also participate during this appeal by donating to Partners In Health: Haiti and other relief organizations through Rogers’ text-to-donate campaign. By sending the text message "HELP" to shortcode 1291, customers are able to donate $5.00 CDN to the Haitian relief efforts. Rogers is working with The ONEXONE Foundation to facilitate 100 per cent of donations of funds and goods to Partners in Health: Haiti and other relief organizations.

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