No. 63 AUTUMN 2O14
ONE WORLD GROUP
OXTED
REGISTERED CHARITY NO 295800
NEWSLETTER NO 63 AUTUMN 2014
Dear Friends of Oxted One World Group,
Welcome to our autumn newsletter with news of our fundraising activities (pages 2-3), and some of the projects that the Group has supported (pages 4-7).
The group continues to flourish with membership currently standing at about 421households.As subscriptions are used to cover our administration costs it is important that we try and keep up our membership numbers so please do try and persuade your friends and relatives to join the group.
Fund-raisingcontinues to go from strength to strength.The committee is grateful to all those who have helped in any way at the recent fund-raising events and to all those who have donated money. All money received from donations as well as from fund-raising activities, goes directly to one of the OWG projects with no deductions made. Before donating any money to a project the OWG committee makes careful checks to ensure that the finances of the project are sound and that the money will be used properly.If there are any doubts about the money being used properly support is not given.
COMING EVENTS TO BE ORGANISED BY OWG
HURST GREEN FAIR -- Bottle Stall –20thSeptember, 2014
If you have your newsletter delivered by hand a committee member will be calling on you shortly to ask if you would be kind enough to donate a bottle for this event. If however you receive your newsletter by post but would like to donate a bottle we would be grateful if you could take it along to Maureen and Keith Mayers, Priest Hill Lodge, High Street, Limpsfield (Tel No. 723398), by Wednesday 17thSeptember. (Priest Hill Lodge is accessed via the driveway which runs beside the Memorial Stores). Any sort of bottles are welcome, from champagne to bubble bath but we cannot use bottles with an out of date code on them(they have to be thrown away), so we would like to ask you to check the date on any bottle(s), before handing them over to your collector. Last year the stall raised the magnificent amount of £816 for the Group with further money being raised from some of the better quality bottles of wine at the Silent Auction.
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING –22nd October 2014, 8.00pm, United Reformed Church, Bluehouse Lane, Oxted
The first part of the meeting will give members the chance to hear about the projects supported and the fund-raising activities of the Group over the past year, ask questions about the work of the Group and meet the committee members. Following this there will be a talkby Terry Charlton from Mission Africa, the charity that was supported by our Christmas Appeal and the Street collection held at the end of November in Oxted when money was collected to help an impoverished farming community in Kivule, Uganda.
After the talk refreshments will be served and there will be the chance to buy Traidcraft products as well as Christmas cards and wrapping paper (with the profit on these going to OWG funds).
BRIDGE AFTERNOON -- MONDAY 20th OCTOBER 2.00pm, Potter’s Cottage, Godstone, courtesy of OWG members David & Celia Butler who are allowing the use of a marquee in their garden. Tickets cost £8.00 per person to include tea, sandwiches and cakes. Please contact Elizabeth Stoughton Harris on 01883 717026 to reserve tables.
STREET COLLECTION –29thNovember 2014in Oxted.
This is an important way of raising our profile within the general community of Oxted and district as well as being a good opportunity to collect money. Help with
collecting is required. Please volunteer to David Steele (712527),if you would be willing to stand for an hour with a collecting tin.
PAST EVENTS AND FUND-RAISING
OPEN GARDENS – 26th May 2014, 2.00pm – 6.00pm.
Unfortunately the weather this year was not so good -- rain beforehand and on the day itselfhad the effect of dampening ticket sales. Nevertheless. over 500people enjoyed looking at five very different and interesting gardens in the Limpsfield,Limpsfield Chartand Staffhurst Wood areas along with the 68 allotments at the Plumbers Arms allotment site.As a result a profit of nearly £5,000 was raised from the day, including £3,378 from ticket sales, £825.52 from refreshments, £486.96from plant sales, £394.70 from a raffle held at one of the gardens and £100 from Robert Leech estate agents who kindly used 20 of their boards to help advertise the event. The committee is very grateful to all those who helped on the day, whether by standing outside to man the gates, selling raffle tickets, supervising parking or by helping to serve refreshments. Thanks also to the Limpsfield Chart singers who entertained visitors at one of the gardens. Particular thanks are due to the owners who were prepared to open up their gardens – it involves a lot of preparatory work, made more difficult this year by the very wet winter, as well as clearing up afterwards. If anyone would like to open their garden next year, the Secretary or Chairman of the Group would be very pleased to hear from them.
COLLECTION AT MORRISONS – 12th July 2014
Oxted shoppers at Morrisons donated £403 for OWG funds. This year we were able to claim Gift Aid on the amount which brought it up to £504.Thanks are due to Morrisons for allowing us to collect on their premises and to the 20 collectors.
SUPPORT FROM CHURCHES, SCHOOLS and LOCAL CLUBS
Earlier in the year OWG was grateful to receive a further donation from the East Surrey Business Club, this time for £215.
EASY FUNDRAISING, OWG has recently registered as a good cause with If you register on this website to support us, when you make a purchase via the website the retailer will donate a small percentage to Oxted OWG. There are over 2700 retailers to buy from including many big names so take a look and help us raise further funds at no cost to you. Also, if you are a UK taxpayer you can gift aid your donations.
PROJECTS SUPPORTED
GLIMMER OF HOPE, KASESE, UGANDA
This oil-pressing project was set up to alleviate poverty and offer work to unemployed youths who would otherwise turn to crime and drugs. At the same time it offered farmers a source of income from growing sesame and sunflowers to provide the seeds for pressing. In April 2010 OWG sent £2,000 to fund the purchase of presses and seeds. Since then, following favourable comments about the running of the project received from a friend of OWG who visited the project, further amounts have been sent to fund the purchase of more seeds and an extra oil mill.
The project now wants to expand by installing an electric pump to replace the manual pump. This will increase production of the oil for which they have a ready market, including contact with a bakery that wants oil. The cost of the new pump,including the cost of transport from Kampala and the installation of the pump, is £4,615. In April OWG promised to send £2,500 with the rest of the money for the pump being provided by the project itself.
COMMUNITY ALLIANCE FOR WOMEN ADVANCEMENT, (CAFO), MWANZA,TANZANIA
CAFO isa communitybased organisation started in 2000, from whom we have had excellent feed-back. It started by working with women and abandoned young mothers and girls out of school and gave them life skills and earning capacity by e.g. forming groups for sewing. Initially OWG provided £1,500 for the training programme and for the purchase of some goats. This was followed in March 2013 with a donation of £2,000 to cover the cost of training 30 village health teams for rural communities who have no health care. This benefitted 900 women and 1,100 children by providing immunisations, monitoring children’s health and providing family planning advice. CAFO has been so successful in its campaigning on health issues that it has persuaded the local authority to provide mosquito nets for the local people. In April OWG agreed to send £2.000 to cover the cost of extending CAFO’s programme of setting up village health care teams and training village health workers to a wider area.
UMEED - URBAN MOBILISATION FOR EDUCATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEVELOPMENT. LAHORE, PAKISTAN.
Umeed which means "Hope" in Urdu, was started in 1997 to help poor communities help themselves by setting up centres in slum areas that provide literacy skills, nutrition programmes, income generation projects, basic sanitation programmes and family planning for women and educational help for children who have become drop-outs. In all of the projects set up by UMEED both Muslims and Christians are helped, despite the tensions that exist between the faiths in some areas. OWG has supported UMEED several times since 1998 and we receive regular feedback about its work. In April OWG agreed to send £1,500 to continue the funding of a centre for mothers and children so that the educational classes can be maintained.
HOPE FOR YOUNG MOTHERS ASSOCIATION (HOYOMA), MUTWANGA DISTRICT, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Hoyoma is a community based association founded in 2008 by 4 young women to promote community development in a very poor area. The group, which has received training from JESO who successfully started mushroom growing with funds from OWG, has grown to include 15 women and 2 men. It wanted to start a fish farming project to improve nutrition in the community and to generate income from the sale of fish. In April 2013 OWG sent £2,000 to pay for fish stock and feed for two fish ponds. In July of this year we received a report that the project is going well -- the fish ponds have successfully been constructed by the members themselves, both capable of holding 7,000 fingerlings (fish stock), each, but so far stocked with 4,000 fingerlings. In addition HOYOMA has successfully conducted a two days training session on business skills development and fish keeping and management for those involved, markets for the fish have been found and there is no longer the need to import fish from Uganda.
GRACE HOUSE, KORKRANH VILLAGE, SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA
Grace House, a Cambodian charity, was introduced to OWG through the sister of a committee member who has visited it twice. It runs a Community Centre catering for children from very poor families, including many street children, and 18 disabled children. In April OWG agreed to send £1,000 to cover the cost of building and equipping a sensory room for the disabled children. In August pictures were received of some of the special lights and touchy/feely toys that have been purchased for the room.
STARFISH PROJECT, SALIMA DISTRICT, MALAWI.
Starfish Malawi is a Christian organisation focused on making a positive difference to the lives of children and young people in Malawi. By school linking it also aims to educate British children about life in Malawi. The project was introduced to OWG by one of our committee members who knows the director of the project.
Malawi has very high rates of HIV/AIDS as a result of which 600,000 children have been orphaned. Starfish fund and manage 4 orphan care centres in the Salima District of Malawi, supporting over 400 children in extended family situations. The children are fed, given stability and prepared for Primary school. Starfish also teaches sustainable farming techniques and tackles health issues in the local community. In order to support the health services provided at the centres in Salima, Starfish wished to purchase a motorized ambulance which will be used to transport children in need of immediate medicalattention to Salima Central Hospital, a round trip of 40 kilometres (24 miles). Currently the children are taken to hospital using a bicycle ambulance, not the best form of transport in the rainy season when many children suffer from malaria or in the dry season when high temperatures are reached.
OWG has recently agreed to send £2,000 to cover the cost of a TVS KING vehicle for use as an ambulance. This is adapted to the terrain and economical to run – Starfish will pay for maintenance and running costs.
GREENBELT FOUNDATION, KISOKWE, TANZANIA
Just over ten years ago OWG started supporting this projectby funding the planting of fruit trees in a very poor area subject to soil erosion. These started yielding fruit after 5 years as well as providing firewood. Since then OWG has funded several projects for Greenbelt which have had the effect of improving the diet and therefore the health of the people in the villages supported by the projects. The Greenbelt Foundation continues to diversify and helps spread information to other groups. In June OWG promised to send £1,000 to pay for the transport, equipment and accommodation for 16 women to attend an 8 day agricultural show to demonstrate their agricultural skills, including the drying of fruit and vegetables with solar dryers. They carried out a similar exercise last year and the dried produce has been very popular – it can be sold out of season, providing a valuable source of income as well as a valuable source of nutrition when there are no other foodstuffs available. Photos have very recently been received of the women at the show with their produce.
YOUTH ADVOCATES FOR CHANGE,(YAC), LUAPALA, ZAMBIA.Founded in 2009 YAC aims to develop skills in food production and job creation among marginalised and underserved young people as well as giving them business planning and entrepreneurship skills. OWG supported the project in June 2013 by sending £2,000 to fund the purchase of fish, training materials, staff transport and the development of a radio programme link with other such projects so that a fish farming programme could be developed. News has now been received that the fish ponds were successfully dug by local labour and then stocked with fish and 40 disadvantaged young men have been trained in fish farming skills as well as in marketing, financial and advertising skills. Fish are being sold to local marketers with a plan to extend the sales to local supermarkets and restaurants. The members of the group have also diversified into agriculture so that they have alternative sources of income. As a result of the project poverty levels have been reduced and many jobs created. The group is now considered to be self sufficient so that YAC can start a similar scheme with another group of disadvantaged youth although they will continue to offer help if needed.
GENESIS SCHOOL, KISUMU, KENYA
Genesis School was started in 1998 for very poor street children whose families couldn’t afford normal school fees as a result of which the children often resorted to stealing food and becoming addicted to glue sniffing. Although education is now free to all, Kenya is desperately short of teachers and the poor areas like Kisumu tend to suffer the most. OWG hasregularly supported Genesis School by sending money (currently £1,000 every six months), to pay the teachers’ salaries (which are much less than the normal state rate), and also to pay for food for the pupils in times of shortage and to pay for building costs when new or extra accommodation has been required.The school currently has 180 pupils ranging in age from 3 to 12. In March this year we heard that 18 of the pupils had been very successful in their Primary Exams, enabling them to go onto High Schools in other parts of the country.
KOLE WOMENS ASSOCIATION (KWA) IN KOLE DISTRICT, N. UGANDA.
KWA was founded in 2008 by a group of graduate conservationists from Northern Uganda with support from the district environment and natural resources departmentand Kole District Poverty reduction programme. Supplies of firewood are increasingly diminished so KWA wanted to involve disadvantaged communities in converting waste into smokeless fuel briquettes. This will not only help in the conservation of natural resources but will also have the effect of reducing indoor pollution so leading to health benefits -- the current use of biomass sources for fuel for cooking has led to many respiratory and eye diseases. In addition the project will enable 40 women to combat poverty by providing an income from the sale of the briquettes as well as providing a cheaper source of energy to many other poor households who will no longer have to spend long hours searching for fuel. To produce the briquettes recycled materials such as paper, cardboard, sawdust (readily available from a local sawmill), soil and organic waste, including such things as coffee husks and banana waste, will be compressed.
In July OWG agreed to send £2,000 to fund training in the making and marketing of briquettes and the purchase of materials such as moulds and safety equipment.
SUBSCRIPTIONS AND DONATIONS
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS. These are due at the AGM inOctober. They remain at £5.00 per person. Please use the form on the enclosed AGM notice for paying subs. and forward the moneyto our treasurer, Anna Burrage, or give it to any committee member or bring it to the AGM.