Donation from The Amateurs Trust

We also received a huge boost to the coffers with the launch of our brilliant Buy A Brick campaign and virtual brick wall thanks to Matthew Knight, Kirsty Stephenson, Julia Bellis, Patrick Sinclair, Ronan Rafferty, Ghazwan Hamdan and Rory MacDonald. In just over a week, we have raised £5,500 –with gift aid, the total amount is now over £7,000 – that amounts to almost £1,000 a day, which is incredible! The wall has 140 bricks so far, all with lovely messages of support. If you’d like your very own brick or to buy one for a friend, visit http://buyabrick.childsifoundation.org/

At the launch party, we also raised nearly £4,000 with our raffle and auction, which included VIP tickets to the C4 Newsroom, behind-the-scenes access to Celebrity Big Brother, and an incredible painting of Jimi Hendrix painted live on the night by artist Mark Eurich. A video will be following shortly but we have some lovely photos of the evening taken by Errol Yucel. 

Mani is the proud owner of Mark Eurich's painting 'Jimi'

As you know, we are looking for 10 Founders to invest £10,000 over the next 2 years – two generous individuals have already committed, but if you know anyone who might want to join us at this crucial time, do please get in touch.

Our wonderful community has also been going from strength to strength, and this week we are hosting a mega Undress For Uganda in London Bridge. We really hope you can make it – don’t forget to bring those (gently worn) clothes along!

All in all, including the Vodafone World of Difference International Grant, we have raised an astonishing £90,000 of the £120,000 we need to go out and get things moving. Please keep on supporting and giving us your love, time – and bricks!

Invite to our latest and greatest Undress for Uganda Event

All you fashion shoppers with a conscience out there are invited to get your kit off and swap it with friends at the biggest ever Undress for Uganda event coming to London Bridge next week.

It’s the ideal way to get a bargain new wardrobe for Christmas while raising cash for Child’s i.

Same as usual – entry is £5 and each item costs £5 and all proceeds go directly to the the charity.

This really is recycling at its best so come along and get involved. If you want to find out more or arrange to donate clothes, shoes or accessories, contact lara@childsifoundation.org

The clothes swap takes place at Arch 897, Holyrood Street, London Bridge, SE1 2EL from 7pm on Wednesday November 4.

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Our Community

Thanks for all your love, time and money.

We truly couldn’t do this without you.

Just Bike Dream Team

Saturday 3rd October saw six brave souls hitting Swindon to take part in the epic Just Bike event, organised by Across The Divide and our girl about community Perle. Simon Crewsdon sensibly signed up for the 50km, while Anna Fiske, Bridget Walker, Perle Laouenan-Catchpole, Kenny Monaghan and Conor Cusack took on the (frankly scary) 100km event.

The team were up bright and early (some as early as 5.30 am to make their way down to Swindon) and the ride kicked off with everyone in good spirits. Simon was off like a shot, never to be seen again, although we hear he is safe and well and completed his 50km in good time! The rest of us took things at our own pace, each battling relentless wind, bumpy roads, endless road kills (dead badger being the worst!) and some seriously steep hills. It wasn’t long, though, before disaster struck in the form of a punctured tyre for a hugely disappointed Conor. He was found wheeling an unhappy bike 50km in, and after four attempts at resuscitating it, was forced to retire.

The rest of the team experienced their own highs and lows, and the first to finish – making it in eight hours – was keen cyclist Anna, shortly followed by top fundraiser Kenny. Two hours later, an ecstatic Perle sauntered to the finish line, followed by a frustrated Bridget who had been caught out by frightening darkness in her last 30 minutes. We were all greeted by a bone-warming stew and a lovely cup of tea, and left Swindon nursing sore bottoms, tired legs and happy hearts.

All in all, it was a fantastic event. The six bikers have so far managed to raise a fantastic £2,800 with more donations coming in! If you’re interested in joining the team next year, or fancy taking part in Across The Divide’s Just Walk event in May 2010, sign yourself up now or put together a team for us. Contact Perle@childsifoundation.org for more information.

Keep on running…

As well as organised events we also love it when Supporters step forward and offer to run marathons for us. Respect goes to Jodie Daly who went out to Uganda and saw the situation for herself and on her return signed up for the Run to the Beat half marathon. Jodie completed it in 2:06:01 and raised a whopping £185 for our charity.

Anne Catliff running for Child's i Foundation

Supporter Anne Catliff came along to our Sussex Meet up and offered to run the 10km South Downs run and completed the event in  01:02:53. She came 12th out of the women which is a terrific achievement.  Huge congratulations to Anne and also a big thank you for so far raising £350!

Whilst we loved the old one, it was originally setup when we were much smaller as an organisation, and it had the simple job of keeping people up to date with how things were getting on.

Now we have a much larger community, and our site needs to work harder in telling the many aspects of our story, from our mission to simpler donation processes, from introducing our community to keeping track of all the wonderful activities which people are engaged in to help us raise funds.

The site is all built upon open source technology, which keeps the cost low and means our group of technologists who help with the site are all able to modify and improve the underlying software to make it fit perfectly with our goals. We think open source is an important part of the way our charity works.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the new site. What would you add? If its your first time here, was it helpful in explaining the charity? We’re taking a very open approach, so your input is invaluable.

A few thanks need to go out to those involved in building the site – Clare Aitken, Lisa Howells, Alissa Barlow, Claire O’Dowd have all been wonderful in helping with writing the content for the site; Nathan Bentley for hosting the site; and of course Kirsty Stephenson and Lucy Buck for how the website should function and its overall strategy.

I can barely believe I am uttering these words, but we are ONE OF EIGHT WINNERS of Vodafone’s World Of Difference award! I can hardly take it in, let only express just how much this will mean to Child’s i Foundation and our Home, so instead I’ll tell you how Vodafone describe it…

‘The WoD initiative is based around the concept that individuals and community organisations should identify what they feel passionate about and then be provided with the resources to make changes happen.’

Well, resources we now have! Not only do we get the invaluable endorsement of corporate giants Vodafone, I get my salary paid and we also receive a grant of up to £20,000. So far between us our incredible supporters have raised nearly £50,000 but we plan to leave in seven weeks, and still have a huge amount to do.

It’s clearly more than our core team can achieve on our own – so we want your help (yes, again!). Yesterday I met Craig Linton who has helped us with all our fundraising efforts, and he suggested I shared our to-do list on video. So, out came trusted flip…

We also need more and more people to join our community. This money is just the first step, we still need to keep raising funds, as well as utilising supporter’s skills and time – join us now at http://childsi.ning.com

I want to take the opportunity, though, to thank everyone for all of their work so far. This award belongs to all of us, and together we will go on to achieve even more incredible things.

I am through to the Vodafone World of Difference final!! Oh. My. God!

This amazing scheme has been set up to award six individuals a massive £24,000 to help them achieve their dreams. I was sworn to secrecy as I went through the various qualifying rounds, but now I’m through to the final 16 and can spill the beans.

Words do not begin to explain what winning this would mean: It would be a brilliant boost to the project – with the money, I would be able to get to Uganda by November and start physically setting up the home. And I’m excited on a personal note, too: after nearly 18 months of sleeping on (very kind, but probably fed up by now) friends’ sofas and spending my life savings on this project, it would be great to be self-sufficient again.

This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and winning this prize would change the lives of hundreds of babies – failure really is a matter of life and death. It is odd, though, how life changes. When I was a TV Producer, we would say things like: ‘It’ll be alright on the night’ and ‘It’s OK, whatever happens, no one will die.’ The stakes have changed so radically now, and the thought of babies dying because we are not out there is a huge burden of responsibility.

I had an interview with the judges, who included the CEO of Vodafone and the Facebook competition winner, Rachel Butler, this morning – it was 9am and I was so scared, I couldn’t string a sentence together. I did my presentation, which I’d practiced with the fairy godmother of presentations Deb Khan @debkhan, and Tim Booth in the Endemol graphics department, who did a brilliant job of making my presentation look totally cool! Everyone was really nice and I spent 30 mins explaining what skills I have to make a ‘world of difference’.

Although I looked a prize idiot holding up a camera in one of the coolest ad agencies on the planet, I wanted you to live the scariest day of my life…

On Saturday, my home village of Rotherfield was transformed into a Glastonbury-style festival (minus the mud!) with Rotherfest – 12 hours of live music and family fun. A big thank you to the brilliant Justin and Kim at the Kings Arms for making us their chosen charity, to Becky and Alan (and all their helpers!) for organising a brilliant day, and to all the bands who played for free – especially headline acts Brian Maiden and Bare Groove. They raised over £2k, but that was just the beginning!

Saturday night saw the first ever Harpenden Curry Night, hosted by Andree and Wendy. Around 30 people enjoyed Andree’s fabulous cooking in a garden marquee, serenaded by live music from Henry the Lounge Singer, who – in true Phoenix Nights-style – turned up in his motor home! It was a great bash, and raised £800 – so thank you to everyone involved.

Harpenden Ladies Curry Night

A wonderfully hot and sunny Monday saw another first – our inaugural Mixed Doubles Tennis Championships in Tidebrook, East Sussex. Huge thanks to Phyllida and Glenn Earle, who kindly hosted the semi-finals, and provided a delicious lunch. The finals were won in a hard-fought battle by Jane and Charlie Ryland – Charlie’s stamina should be particularly noted, especially as he was rushed to A & E following the event to have a piece of metal removed from his eye! Everyone was extremely generous, and we raised around £800.

Mixed Doubles Tennis Championships

The Bank Holiday weekend ended with our second Romance & Dirty Glamour speed dating night. Some 40 singletons turned up to find love, and weren’t disappointed! After dazzling ballet-star-turned-pole-dancer Trixie Belle got the night (and everyone’s pulses) going with her stunning show, the dates commenced. Despite a slight hiccup with the numbering system, which led to a few confused men trying to work out exactly which lovely ladies they should be talking to, romance was definitely in the air, and lots of matches were made. We raised around £600 on the night, and some lucky folk gained a few phone numbers!

Trixie Bell in action @ our Speed Dating night

We couldn’t so this without you – and every single penny counts. Talking of counting, the last word has to go to supporter Chris Thorpe. A self-confessed gadget geek, Chris went walking through Austria, complete with loads – and we do mean loads! – of gadgets to map his position, and ‘day streamed’ tweets of his journey. It’s the most truly interactive fundraising initiative yet, and we felt like we were with him every step of the way. You can still sponsor his incredible journey – visit http://www.justgiving.com/fourwalks and http://four.walks.at/

Prevention / Care / Placement with family

BUT we still needed answers to some vital questions before we go out to Uganda to set up the project in November:

1. Do we have the full support of the Ugandan Government?
2. Is the idea of preventing abandonment just a dream?
3. Can foster parents actually be found in Uganda?

The answers to these three points will make or break our charity and so, just 2 weeks ago, I went out to Kampala to find out. If the answer to any of the questions is “No” then our plans will crash.

So last Monday saw me nervously waiting to see Uganda’s Commissioner for Children – he decides the overseas charities that are to be allowed to work in Uganda. I outlined how we planned to work and waited for the official reaction:

“I like these ideas – no one has tried prevention before – we think this could be very good – we like your emphasis on fostering – we support Child’s i Foundation’s plans.”

The Commissioner explained the procedure for the formal application but we know we will be approved by the Ugandan government. A Yes!!

Next was a visit to Mulago hospital, Uganda’s largest and busiest, but now showing its age and clearly struggling to cope with an immense workload of sick people. Our small team of social workers, me and a senior doctor have designed a new project that could offer help and friendship to mothers known to be unhappy and stressed and at high risk of abandoning their babies.

Then Faith Kalanji – the senior social worker – said;

“We have a teenage mother on the wards who urgently needs support. An HIV/ AIDS orphan herself, C. was left alone in the world by her baby’s father just days before she was due. She has already tried to abandon her new born baby boy out of total desperation. Can Child’s i Foundation help prevent it from happening again? Can we help her NOW?”

Of course we must try, I replied, and immediately asked our partners in Home-Start Uganda to help us to give C. all the support we can. That was over a week ago and she and her baby are still together, she’s contentedly breast feeding him, and now saying that nothing will now separate her from her son. This has taken time and love offered by a great volunteer and financial support to buy food and clothes for the mother and baby. But it looks as if we are succeeding in preventing this tiny baby boy from losing his mother or even being just thrown away to die.

Another Yes!!
And, lastly, I have found some great examples of wonderful foster families being found for teenage street children – with a 75 % success rate- and I am sure that we can do it for the babies we will be working with.

A third Yes!!
My trip was exhausting and nonstop – but what encouragement it gives us to get started as soon as possible. Help us raise the money and, together, we can do the job – we can save lives.