 |
|
|
|
March 31st 2007
On Saturday, March 31st, The Funding Network held a Funding Day at
the Royal Overseas League in London - in partnership with Charities
Aid Foundation. The event was one of the most successful funding days
to date raising a total of £79,665.42 for 9 projects:
- MacIntyre Care: The grant raised will go towards opening
a training facility in the centre of Milton Keynes in order to
provide opportunities for a number of people with learning disabilities
to teach and learn skills which they would otherwise not have.
These will be based on training and assisted employment in a community
café, which will serve both visitors to the YMCA and the general
public. The project is intended to enhance not only the skills
of all participants, but also their self-esteem and usefulness
as members of society. www.macintyrecharity.org
- Hisham Mubarak Law Centre, Cairo Egypt: -To support one
of the most important and promising trends in the Mid-East, the
growing movement for human rights in Egypt. The law centre works
on an array of different issues – trade union rights, religious
rights, labour rights, fair elections, freedom of the press, women’s
rights, and the many aspects of freedom of expression. A large
part of their work is to combat the overweening use of state power
– the arbitrary arrests and torture that are a constant theme
of Egyptian life. The funds raised will help them to develop their
infrastructure, to increase their effectiveness. This would be
at both their Cairo office and their office in Aswan, in upper
Egypt. Money spent on infrastructure and administrative support
will be of lasting value in enabling the organisation to make
best use of its dedicated professional staff.
- Phedisang Aids/HIV Orphans Project: Phedisang is a community-based
organisation providing basic care for children orphaned by the
HIV/AIDS pandemic, giving orphans the opportunity to continue
living with their remaining family by providing them with food
and thus relieving much of the financial pressure. The TFN grant
will enable enable the children to continue being fed and supported
for a further 1-2 months (@£3,500/month) while further funding
is accessed. www.phedisang.org
- The Anchor Project: The Anchor Project is a charity working
with London unaccompanied asylum applicants aged 10 to 18 years
old who do not have any family member in the UK. It offers a setting
to enable social inclusion and to develop practical day to day
skills. The TFN grant will go towards their general costs. Their
main expenses are the hiring of the youth club and the purchase
of food. The Anchor Project is committed to providing a hot meal
at the end of each session, which is very important particularly
for children who survive on £5 a day. They have allocated £300
for printing. They would like to design user friendly information,
i.e. flyers and brochures about The Anchor Project to be sent
to our young members and to professionals dealing with UASC. www.anchorproject.org
- FairPensions: To raise public awareness about socially
responsible investment in pensions and its ability to address
major environmental and social problems. FairPensions’ project
will consist of recruiting a dedicated individual to publicise
such everyday stories (a young girl sits forlorn, otherwise well-fed
and educated, suffering from Bronchitis as a result of gas flaring
from the western oil plant abutting her village) to help bring
investment to life; and highlight the power of investors to end
such behaviour. This would take the form of bringing about greater
media attention, pro-actively placing articles about responsible
investment, speaking at conferences, and getting other charities
and NGOs to advertise the principles of responsible investment
to their supporters. www.fairpensions.org.uk
- MyBnk: MyBnk uses financial services to encourage disadvantaged
young people to take responsibility for helping themselves and
the wider community. MyBnk created the first ever bank-in-a-box
run by young people in schools and in homeless shelters, addressing
financial exclusion and encouraging enterprise skill development.
TFN's grant will enable MyBnk to expand its current pilot programme
and to reach a stage where an application can be made to UnLtd
and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation for more substantial grants.
Supporting the Mybnk project will help them to prevent new generations
from being as financially excluded and debt ridden as the previous
ones have been. It will help them better manage their money, become
savvier savers and will develop awareness about ethical financial
practices. Business needs entrepreneurs, and the world needs social
entrepreneurs. TFN's grant will be investing in developing disadvantaged
young people’s enterprise skills. This will better equip them
to face a competitive job market, to improve their lives but also
to be agents for social change. www.mybnk.org
- Sponsored Arts for Education (SAFE): To encourage public
education in Africa by empowering youth to use the arts to communicate
vital health education messages in crisis communities, thereby
challenging the stigma and discrimination surrounding HIV/AIDS,
and promoting compassion, honesty and open discussion. The TFN
grant will cover all the project costs of a four-week tour reaching
over 5,000 people. The result will be a Pilot Study that will
be used to gain long-term funding for this community development
project. The three-year plan includes training nurses to administer
VCT within the Loita Hills, developing a sexual health programme
within this small health centre, and using performers/ peer educators
as engagement tools, bridge-building between the community and
the health services. www.sponsoredarts.org
- Kids for Kids: The project aims to improve the health
and welfare of children in remote villages in Darfur affected
by the on-going conflict through: ·1) improving the managerial
and organisational capacities of the targeted communities, 2)
enhancing livelihoods through restoring productive assets particularly
goats, 3) improving crop production and productivity, and · improving
access to essential services including water, health and education.
The specific objective for which the funds were raised is to provide
additional goat loans, of 6 goats to approximately 60 of the poorest
families and to provide the necessary support to ensure their
success. Families will be selected and supervised by the village
Animal Loan Committee which will be trained by the project. www.kidsforkids.org.uk
- Development Education Association (DEA): DEA is a charity
that promotes a global dimension in education to enable young
people to be global citizens. By changing education it promotes
an understanding of the global problems that we face such as sustainable
development and poverty. The funds raised will demonstrate the
organisation’s ability to survive as a stronger, on-going concern
through the year and therefore put it in a position this spring
to access a new 3 year funding agreement with the Department for
International Development (DfID), bringing in more than £350,000
per annum. Therefore a small sum will be leveraged into unlocking
a far larger amount. www.dea.org.uk
|
|
|
