Newsletter Q1 2008
And a good day to you all...
Apologies for the tardiness (normally we will aim to the newsletter with you a month after the end of each quarter), the last couple of months have been particularly hectic with weddings, stag do’s and the like. In the absence of our resident wordsmith who is still busy revising for his journalism exams (best of luck Alistair), Anna, James and I have cobbled together all the latest news from our various charities…and here it is…
Seeds of Hope – Peru
Well the first thing to say is Happy 2nd Birthday Seeds and Congratulations! Seeds has grown in this time from a charity supporting thirty children in rooms lent by a local house owner to a charity educating seventy five children in two schools in Huaraz and Cusco. They also now have a great website and are attracting lots more local and international volunteers.
The second thing to say is thank you to everyone who voted them back in for another year. They have fantastic fundraising and development ideas this year and it’s so exciting that we can help them to achieve them.
Click here for full story and more photos Q108Seeds
And over to James Etchells for the latest on the...
Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers
After the election results I spoke with Carissa from the Coalition and they were delighted to have been voted in for a second year and passed on their thanks to OPS members for their continued support. In the proposal for the election, it was mentioned that the 2007 project that OPS funds supported in the DRC had been experiencing some difficulties. Therefore, Carissa and Heloise proposed two possible new activities that we could get involved with:
- Support to children’s awareness raising activities (DRC)
- Bringing the voices of formerly abducted children to reintegration (Uganda/DRC)
Click here for full story Q108 Coalition.
Headway
It is our great pleasure to announce a new addition to the ever growing list of people getting involved in helping run our group: The one the only Mr David Croshaw! From next quarter onwards David will be administering our partnership with Headway where he has started volunteering, lending his considerable expertise in both music and gardening to the centre.
The fist quarter of this year has indeed been a monumental one for Headway and thanks to Philippa for putting together this for us…
"Headway has a new home!!! We have finally moved to our new premises at Timber Wharf, next to the Regents Canal, just off Kingsland Road. A brand new, light and airy building with a fledgling garden!..."
Click here for the full story... HeadwayQ108
And finally Dushyant Meyer (SBT) with all the latest news from
Salaam Balak Trust
Since 2007 OPS have been sponsoring a contact point for street children at Old Delhi Railway Station
Achievements of this quarter:
- Total number of children accessing services at the centre: 153 (Nutrition & Non Formal Education)
- Total number of New Children introduced to the program: 52
To read full article click here SBT Q108.
And finally just a couple of news-swigs to wet your whistle…
OPS EXPANSION
This has been the real focus of the last couple of months for John and myself. We’ve been busy compiling a guide on how other groups can set up their own One Percent Schemes. To summarise, this comprises of a few key principles supplemented by guidelines relating to everything from registering with the charity commission to how to choose good charities. The idea is that whilst maintaining some important things: keeping groups small; giving directly to small charities, each group is given the chance to run their scheme as they wish. Our goal is to have helped another group get up and running by the start of the year, be it a university group, a group within a company or simply a network of friends similar to us.
The key issue to achieving this we believe is developing a free, easy to use standard OPS website that all new groups will be given access too. Despite my evident technical brilliance (I try to get John up to speed but sometimes I despair…), certain things are beyond even my capabilities and we are delighted, genuinely, to have John Bankes and Matt…onboard lending their considerable expertise to designing and building this system – cheers guys. Likewise, a big thanks to Charlie, Zena and Thijs who have all agreed to give some time to helping review our material for the guide and eventually market it along with looking into OPS can work within a broader corporate social responsibility framework for companies.
Lastly, its worth mentioning that we’re also on the lookout for any potential fundraising that can cover the costs associated with building this new web system. This looks like it will be about £1500, a fraction of what it would have cost without the help of John and Matt. Obviously all money from members donations will remain 100% focused on helping our partner charities, so if anyone has any bright ideas for external fundraising then answers on a postcard please! We’ve started getting out and about, meeting people who we think can help both financially and more generally in helping OPS push on. John and I met John Humphrys from Radio 4 a month or so back and he was positive about our vision going forward which was good to hear.
Well then, that just about wraps her up. We’ll be back to you with more news and hopefully some events in Jul – Roll on summer – Marcus for OPS
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