On Friday 3rd February and Saturday 4th February we will be away at The Body Shop at Home conference, raising more than £10,000 for Children on the Edge, by selling raffle tickets and goody bags.
We’re looking for two more willing volunteers to join our team to help us over the weekend. Can you help? Or do you know someone who can? You'd be joining Ben and Eloise, plus others from our head office for a fun-packed couple of days on the team trip to Telford, in the Midlands. On Friday 3rd February we leave Chichester around 9am and travel to Telford to set up our stand at the conference centre. Saturday will be a busy day, and volunteers will help us to sell raffle tickets run our stall selling goody bags to The Body Shop’s consultants. We'll show you everything you need to know; you just need to have lots of enthusiasm and a friendly attitude! It's a great event, with a brilliant buzz as we get to meet more than 1,000 Body Shop consultants who love Children on the Edge. Your help will ensure we maximise this incredible opportunity to raise as much money as we can. With enough help, the weekend should raise more than £10 000, which is enough to cover the costs running our Early Childhood Development Centre (ECD) in Loco, Uganda for a whole year. What you need to know
If you are interested, or would like to find out more, please call Eloise, our Fundraising Manager on 01243 538530 or email [email protected]. The 29th November is #GivingTuesday - the day to do good stuff for charity, straight after Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Last year, this global campaign raised £6,000 a minute for UK charities and broke the world record for most amount of money donated online in 24 hours! This Christmas, and on #GivingTuesday, Children on the Edge need your support for our Season of Hope appeal. Can you make donation and spread the word to help us bring hope to forgotten children this Christmas? A Season of Hope The traditional Christmas story is all about hope. Most of us will have seen the nativity or been in a nativity play as a child. Whether you were an angel with tinsel wrapped round your head, or a shepherd donning a tea towel, the message was the same: a tiny baby is born in a manger against the odds, bringing hope and joy to many people. So, for lots of people, Christmas really is a season of hope. Children on the Edge exists to bring hope, life, colour and fun to some of the most forgotten children across the world today. This Christmas, and on #GivingTuesday we are inviting you to give hope to these children by supporting our Season of Hope appeal. How we’re bringing hope to children in Uganda We’re working across a number of small slum communities in Uganda, to help make them safer places for children. In Loco, a slum community housing some of the poorest families near Jinja, conditions are dire. There is a high level of alcohol abuse, which leaves children vulnerable to abuse and neglect. Theft is rampant and there are frequent instances of domestic violence. The nearby nursery school and primary school are both run down and expensive to attend, stopping the most vulnerable children from enrolling.
But thanks to Children on the Edge, things are changing, for the better. We have established Child Protection Teams in Loco, and three other slum areas in Uganda. These teams are working to empower each community to build a protective environment for their children. They are building relationships with people in their own communities, identifying problem areas and creating a link between people living in the slums and local authorities and services. All of which is having a hugely positive impact and making Loco a safer place for children. Already each team member is full of stories about how they have used their training to intervene in situations of child neglect, abuse, domestic violence and crime. In January 2016, when we visited Loco, before the Child Protection Team was set up, the people there said they had no hope. But just a few months later, Chizito, the Chairperson of the new Child Protection Team in Loco said: "The people see workshops, they see a team that deals with their problems, they see a drop in domestic violence and crime, they see their children on a play scheme and a new Early Childhood Development Centre being built, and it gives them hope. These things have never happened in Loco. Hope is knowing things can change". Five months on and the centre is built. Not only this, but a class of children from the most vulnerable households in Loco are well into their first term and making incredible progress. Thank you! On this years’ #GivingTuesday, we want to take the time to thank all of our supporters who donate to Children on the Edge throughout the year, whether that’s their money, time or ideas. As a small charity, we rely on the support of people like you, who help us continue our work to help some of the world’s most vulnerable children. Our chums over at Montezuma’s chocolates have just completed an amazing charity fundraising month, raising a whopping £2,137.98 for Children on the Edge. Throughout October, staff at ‘Chocolate HQ’, as well as in their 6 stores completed a number of different fundraising challenges and activities. In stores, over the course of a week, customers paid £1 to take part in challenges including: ‘Guess how many buttons in a jar’; ‘Design a chocolate bar’ plus quizzes and other chocolate themed games – all raising £686.29! ![]() At ‘Chocolate HQ’ - the aptly named Montezuma’s Head Office - staff took part in a new challenge every week throughout October, including an ‘Auction of Promises’, where staff offered their skills to other colleagues, for a price. What a great idea! Someone offered their gift wrapping prowess – agreeing to wrap 10 Christmas presents for a colleague. Another agreed to bake a cake, clean a car, do someone’s ironing, along with an offering of a tarot card reading and hair braiding lesson! Other activities including a chocolate themed staff sports day or ‘Chocolate Olympics’. Teams competed against each other in a (chocolate) egg and spoon race; throwing a bag of buttons as far as they can; a relay race with a chocolate bar as the baton; a ‘balance a chocolate bar on your head’ race and finally a ‘which team can scoff a packet of chocolate buttons the quickest’. For four-year-old Alex who joined in, this was his favourite event! Don’t worry, staff have also been shedding those chocolate calories on a static bike in the office, The team at Chocolate HQ managed to cycle an impressive 862 miles over the course of the October. Which, according to Google Maps, is the distance between John O’Groats to Lands End, if you take the A9. Well done team! Even better is that, according to the staff, they even did this without much help from their cycling-mad bosses – Helen and Simon! The total raised throughout the month by staff was £379.70, adding to the £686.29 raised by Montezuma’s stores, plus a generous matched donation by the owners of Montezuma’s themselves took the total to £2,137.98! This will go such a long way to help fund our work to support some of the worlds most vulnerable children - thank you Montezuma's!
This Christmas, following the success of our 2015 ‘All Wrapped Up’ appeal, we’ve launched 'A Season of Hope' – our 2016 gift wrap appeal! We’ve produced some beautiful ‘Season of Hope’ gift wrap, and all the profits go towards our projects on the ground, helping children in desperate circumstances. We are inviting you to give hope to the children we work with by simply wrapping up your gifts and encouraging others to do the same.
On Sunday 9th October we held the 5th annual Chichester Half Marathon, which raises vital funds for our work with vulnerable children abroad. This year was our biggest and best event yet, with over 1051 registered runners and for the first time we introduced two brand new races - the 10 miler event and the Team Relay. It was a glorious sunny day, and as our runners gathered at Chichester College from 8am, you could feel the buzz in the air. We were joined by local TV presenter, Sally Taylor and local hero Amanda Worne who both opened the race and pressed the starting gun to set our runners on their way. This year, we've been kindly sponsored by so many local businesses. We couldn't run the event without their support, so we'd like to say an enormous thank you to: Montezuma's, Store Property, Krowmark, Evans Weir, Covers, Wiley, Irwin Mitchell, Natures Way Foods, SouthDowns Water, The Body Shop Foundation, Higher Nature and The Run Company. If your business would like to be involved in the Chichester Half 2017, please contact Eloise. In this year of firsts; we also launched our 'Run for Refugees' Team of runners who were not only supporting Children on the Edge by taking part in the event, but fundraised especially for us to raise money for our work with refugee children. We provide protection, education and support in trauma recovery for Syrian refugee children in Lebanon, Rohingya refugee children in Bangladesh and internally displaced children in in Kachin State, Burma. We had 16 amazing runners, who have so far raised an incredible £4325! They were tasked with raising £100 each to help cover the daily cost of running a tent school for 100 children in a refugee camp in Lebanon, but they've doubled their target and raised enough to support 100 children going to school for 7 weeks. A great achievement. Our Run for Refugees team included two Relay Teams - Jamie, Gemma and Dan, raising £300, along with Emma Payne who ran with two family members and raised £840 for Children on the Edge. Also running his first ever half marathon was Rory Durkan; who was still smiling at the end and raised a great £162; nearly double his target! Matt Gibbs, our only Nordic Walker not only travelled down from Preston for the event to raise money for us, but was also the first Nordic Walker over the line! We'd expect nothing less of the British Champion. Speaking of champions, John Miles, a long standing Children on the Edge fundraiser achieved a PB and came first in the over-60 category! Runner, Emma Manton made the most of her time in Chichester whilst performing at the Festival Theatre by taking part in the Chichester Half and has raised an amazing £525. Finally, Laura Magnavacchi only signed up for the race a few days before and did a great job at some last minute fundraising! In other fundraising news, were were really touched to meet a team of 15 runners who were taking part in the Chichester Half in memory of their friend and fellow club runner, Dawn Piechoczek, who won the 2013 Chichester Half in the over 50's category in her last running race. What a fitting, and lovely tribute. The team of friends were raising money for Macmillan and the Sussex Cancer Trust and had raised nearly £1000. It's great to see the Chichester Half providing an opportunity for people to raise funds for other great local and national charities. Our amazing volunteers also can't go without a mention; they were up early on a Sunday to help marshal the race, hand out goody bags, present medals and help our runners refuel and rehydrate once they were over the finish line. The event really couldn't happen without this incredible team behind us. We're so grateful to all our volunteers, sponsors and runners who made this years' event such a success.
We are currently looking for an organised and methodical researcher to support our Trusts and Foundations fundraising by developing a database of relevant funding opportunities.
The Children on the Edge Head Office is based in Chichester, West Sussex. From this office the charity drives its international development strategy, major fundraising and charitable governance. We are always keen to hear from people who identify with our aims and goals, have a heart for volunteering their time and their relevant skills for a truly worthwhile cause. As a research volunteer, working together with our Grants Officer you will research relevant trusts, foundations and other funding opportunities from within the UK, Europe and internationally. Due to our recent successful application for equivalency determination status, the USA now offers a wealth of opportunities which were previously unavailable to us. Developing an understanding of Children on the Edge and our work, you will be able to systemically and thoroughly carry out in depth research, using a wide variety of available sources and record your findings in a clear and coherent way. By identifying key funding opportunities you’ll make a big difference to Children on the Edge and, ultimately, to the lives of vulnerable children around the world. To find out more about this post including goals, key tasks and responsibilities, skills required and benefits for you, please see the job description on our volunteer page. If you feel this is something you have the skills for and you would be willing to give some time, then simply fill out a volunteer registration form and we will then arrange for you to meet with our Office Manager and Grants Officer. We look forward to hearing from you! We want to say a special thank you to our team of Ambassadors who are holding their 'Hope, Life, Colour, Fun' Ball this weekend, raising funds to help equip and run our tented schools for Syrian refugee children in Lebanon.
We’re delighted to be welcoming Douglas & Gordon as sponsors for the evening at Cowdray Park, Midhurst, whose support is enabling us to provide a tent school, and train and support four teachers to help educate a hundred refugee children for a year. This event is happening at an exciting time for the project, as the children have just started their new term. Over the summer the children took two weeks off over Ramadan and then did an extra two weeks of school to catch up on the learning time they lost when their camps were evacuated in December. Despite this, all 264 children in the schools last year completed their learning and passed their exams. To celebrate they enjoyed a graduation week with certificates, rewards and trips. James Evans, CEO at Douglas & Gordon, said “Children on the Edge is a fantastic charity that we, at Douglas & Gordon, are proud to support. We hope that with our ongoing partnership, Children on the Edge will be able to sustain and grow their projects in Lebanon.” This year sees an extra 160 children enrol, taking the number of children in the tent schools to over 400. We are excited to have the support of Douglas and Gordon as we begin the new term and see the progress it brings. Find out more about the project Consider a donation to the work here Last weekend, the Children on the Edge team were in Telford to join the jungle-themed Christmas (yes, you read that right) conference for The Body Shop At Home™, along with 1200 of their consultants!
These wonderful women, and a few wonderful men, are some of our biggest fundraisers and have raised a whopping £1.3 million for Children on the Edge over the past 22 years. Children on the Edge have a very close relationship and deep-rooted history with The Body Shop®️, who make a huge contribution to our work. The weekend conference is a chance for The Body Shop At Home™ consultants to get together, learn about new products and get ideas for building and growing their business, as well as finding out more about our work. They heard from our Head of UK, Ben Wilkes about how their efforts directly support our work in Uganda and also found out about how they can continue to support Children on the Edge with fundraising ideas. The Body Shop At Home™ consultants are divided into 10 different regions of the UK and each do their own fundraising. Enthusiastic Regional Managers and Children on the Edge Champions in each area do a fantastic job of encouraging their team members to support our work. The conference at the weekend gave us a chance to celebrate their successful fundraising so far this year, see just how much each team had raised and find out who was on track to meet their fundraising targets. Staff members Eloise, Amy and Ben were raising funds for Children on the Edge on the day too, all going towards The Body Shop At Home™ regional team totals. They did this by selling raffle tickets; wrapping paper; colourful new t-shirts and our favourite Montezuma’s chocolate - which proved very popular! In just one day, the generous delegates helped us raise an amazing £6,670. This joins the £39,732 already raised by The Body Shop At Home™ this year. We’d like to say a big thank you to everyone at The Body Shop At Home™ for their amazing fundraising efforts and continued support. If you’d like to support our work by making a donation, you can do that here. PS. If you like the look of our beautiful new wrapping paper - themed as ‘A Season of Hope’ - we’re delighted to say that it will be available to buy soon. If you’re interested in stocking this in your shop or business, or would like to find out how you can help fundraise for Children on the Edge by selling it in your community, please get in touch with Amy Rook our Fundraising and Communications Officer – [email protected] | 01243 538530. World Refugee Week (20th - 26th June) commemorates the strength, courage and perseverance of millions of refugees. In support, we are launching a ‘Run for Refugees’ challenge to fundraise for the many refugee children we work with.
Each year Children on the Edge organises the Chichester Half Marathon together with Everyone Active. In 2016 we are looking for 100 'Team Children on the Edge' runners to raise £100 for refugee children. Our work includes the provision of protection, education and support in trauma recovery for Syrian refugee children in Lebanon, Rohingya refugee children in Bangladesh and internally displaced children in in Kachin State, Burma. Always on the move - Aya’s story Aya is a 12 year old Syrian refugee who, together with her parents and four siblings, were forced to flee to Lebanon. The whole family lived in a tiny tarpaulin construction in a refugee camp in Bekaa Valley. Having lost everything her parents would go out each day to find work and leave Aya to care for the other children. After talking with teachers from the tent schools we support, her mother decided that Aya could start attending. At first she was shy, but slowly became incredibly motivated. One teacher said “We often see her studying Arabic or maths or practicing her English outside of class, even over holidays. She quickly caught up with the rest of her peers and is a bright, perceptive, caring student.” Soon after this, the military arrived and ordered the evacuation of the entire camp. They had nowhere to go. The team running the schools decided to build their own camp, where families could be safe. Aya’s father ended up helping to look for land to rent and sharing ideas about how the camp could be a safe and peaceful place. He volunteered to help a team of builders take down the current school and reconstruct it at the new site. Aya and her family have since moved into the new camp and have opened a small grocery shop from their tent. The children are now all in the new school and their parents are instrumental in the functioning of the camp. Project leader Nuna Matar says “They look like new people”. £97 can help run a tent school in Lebanon for one day, helping 100 Syrian refugee children come to school. So with a small amount of fundraising from you, we can make a big difference. Whether you're running the Chichester Half Marathon course, the Ten Miler or Team Relay, you can be part of Team Children on the Edge and raise funds for refugee children. Starting on Monday 20th June (World Refugee Day) until the end of July we are running a special discount code to get £10 off your entry fee when you commit to raising £100. Simply register for the race, enter the code RunforRefugees10. Sign up for the Chichester half Find out more about our work. The Body Shop At Home™ has been awarded this year’s DSA Company with Heart Award for their work with Children on the Edge. Each year the DSA (Direct Selling Association) hosts industry awards and this award is in recognition of a Member company that has gone the extra mile through the philanthropic activities, charitable impact and community engagement. The Body Shop At Home™ is the direct selling arm of The Body Shop®, a global beauty brand built on making people feel so good – face, body and soul. This company strives to make a positive difference in the world and supporting Children on the Edge is one of the ways they bring this commitment to life. Children on the Edge was co-founded by Anita Roddick over 25 years ago. She always believed that business should be about public good not public greed and since the outset her company has supported the work we do. They have raised huge amounts over this time, and over £270k in the past three years alone. The recent fundraising focus has been on providing support for Ugandan children living in appalling conditions in Soweto Slum, Jinja. Throughout this time they have contributed towards incredible community transformation through the establishment of a safe children’s education Centre, a Child Protection Team, flourishing agricultural schemes and small business loans. Building on this success they are now supporting Children on the Edge to replicate this work in the wider region, bringing change on a bigger scale. We are delighted The Body Shop At Home™ has been recognised in this way as they truly are a company with heart. Are you a consultant with The Body Shop At Home™ ? Click here to get involved. |
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