Newsletter Q1 2009

Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers

Over the last few months its been all change at the Coalition with a new program manager in the Great Lakes region (where OPS donations are channelled) with Heloise Ruaudel being replaced by Boniface Mush’ayuma. Mr Mush’ayuma brings experience working on issues of child protection, children and armed conflict and Disarmament, Demobilisation, Reintegration (DDR) in the DRC.
Our main contact point at the Coalition still remains Carissa Lopez, and she has taken the time to prepare an update for OPS members.  As you will read, the regional partners have been extremely busy over the last months in particular with community based prevention in the Beni region of the DRC and also with the International Red Hand Day. It really seems like the work of the regional partners is having a direct positive impact and radio messages broadcast in the region may have led to the release of some 50 children from the ranks of the Mai Mai militia group. Thanks as always to Carissa.

Click here for the full Coalition report Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers - May 2009

Salaam Balak Trust

Lots of news from SBT for this quarter, not all of it good unfortunately. The worldwide recession has impacted on some donors and supporters of SBT recently and this demonstrates how important the support of charities such as ours remains. More positively, SBT have been able to secure an increase in government funding whilst one of the street kids who received lessons from SBT has received a national Bravery Award. Our contact with SBT, Nick Thompson, has a full report. There is also an update on the impact Slumdog Millionaire continues to have on the work of SBT.

Click here for Nick's report Salaam Balak Trust - May 2009

Seeds of Hope

The Seeds of Hope School in Huarez, Peru continues to go from strength to strength. In the first few months of this year alone, a new classroom has been added, monthly day-trips have been planned and the school now has a PC with internet connection for the first time. Our contacts at Seeds of Hope have been in touch to pass on their thanks to all OPS members and to provide us with an update on all their work.

Click here for Seeds of Hope's report Seeds of Hope - May 2009

Headway East London

Closer to home, Headway East London have also been able to provide a number of new opportunities for their members since the turn of the year, thanks in no small part to OPS donations. Also, our very own David Croshaw is leaving for university in August/September and so we are looking for anyone who would like to volunteer at Headway East London and then give us some feedback on what is going on there and also on what OPS money is spent on. Its a really worthwhile charity and anyone who has visited has always said how much they have enjoyed the experience - I'm sure David could fill anyone in with more detail as well if interested. If you would like to volunteer and help OPS, please let me know:

Click here for Headway East London's report Headway East London - May 2009

New Feature!...Charities we like

For a while now John and I have been having a think about how best to find and introduce interesting new causes to the group. Whilst in previous years we have found some worthwhile causes to nominate come the end of the year, this has felt a little rushed and perhaps not the best way to go about things. To reflect this and the fact that we are really happy with our current partners, last year we adopted the annual review rather than necessarily an election. The thought behind this being that we would only nominate new charities if a member (or trustee) felt strongly about them, rather than finding something at short notice just so we could have an election at the end of the year.

Given that awareness is something that we feel strongly about, we thought that we the trustees should be making more of an effort to seek out interesting new ideas and accordingly, we plan to include a piece on at least one new charity in each newsletter from here on in. We thought that at the very least this should make some interesting reading and that it would hopefully stir up some thought and debate, especially come the end of the year when we are considering who we want to support for the following 12months.

If any of you come across any worthy causes of your own that you think the group should hear about then please do get in touch and we can get it the newsletter.

Check out this quarters top picks Charities We Like

Why give to charity?

Lastly, an interesting piece from Time Out about why we give to charity...make of it what you will!  

Whats in it for me.pdf(807 KB)