Store & Secure: It's airshow time!

Castlepoint-based Store & Secure welcomed crews and visitors in Bournemouth for the town's annual airshow.

Child of Hope: The Fixer

A former Ugandan street kid is now training as an electrician with good prospects of a future job.

Child of Hope primarily takes in nursery-age children, giving them support and education throughout their school life. Occasionally they step in to help older ones; here’s one of them…

Former street kid Elijah went to Mbale Secondary School, paid for by a local charity called Child Restoration Outreach (CRO). However, his funding ended at the equivalent of ‘O’ level, which didn’t give him a qualification for employment. So, at the age of 18, Child of Hope initially employed him as a classroom assistant in the nursery. He spent two years there, and then transferred to classroom assistant in the primary department for one year, which he really enjoyed.

However, Elijah always wanted to be an electrician, repairing appliances, so we paid for him to attend a three-year course with Christian Childcare Project (CCP) which includes vocational training. He is now in the middle of the second year and is already making great progress.

So, when the washing machine at Bex and Moses’ home stopped working, Elijah dismantled it and – with help from his tutor – got it working again. While there he also fixed a table lamp and a kettle, both of which had also stopped working; and at the church he dismantled an old electric piano keyboard and managed to repair the keys on it that had broken. That is now being used alongside a new one that was recently donated to replace it.

We love this… a young man originally with little or no prospect of a future has been transformed by the intervention of CRO and Child of Hope… and he is well on his way to becoming equipped to earn a good, honest living in his adult life.

http://www.childofhopeuganda.org/latest-news/fixer/

Store & Secure achieves a British Quality standard

[Photography, press release and online PR for Store & Secure self-storage]

Both Store & Secure's Bournemouth and Basingstoke facilities have gained British Quality Standard BS EN 15696:2008.

In the process it appears they are the first solely self-storage company to win the accreditation! Read more: https://www.storeandsecure.co.uk/self-storage-news/bsi/ 

Child of Hope: Wi-Fi boost

Sum school Wi-Fi boost: We’ve beefed up our in-school Wi-Fi, which enables all the staff to access emails and the internet. This enhances their communication and knowledge for creating better (and more fun) lessons – and, importantly, it also helps our expanding family support team to co-ordinate and share information better.

Previously we just had one router based in the administration area which only covered that end of the building. Now, after installing three boosters, we now have Wi-Fi for the whole building and even up to 400m outside the school compound!

http://www.childofhopeuganda.org/latest-news/wi-fi-boost/

Child of Hope's latest newsletter

All the latest news from Child of Hope and how we’re helping Ugandan slum kids like these (and their families) rise from the worst extremes of poverty... click the link below to read our latest newsletter...

https://madmimi.com/s/d5c1aa

And if you’d like to receive Child of Hope’s news from the Namatala slum in Uganda – direct by email into your inbox once a month – you can sign up by clicking the link below!

http://madmimi.com/signups/67994/join

Child of Hope: Getting a family back on the road

When Margaret’s vegetable business no long seemed to provide her family with enough money, our IGA team helped her find the solution and now she’s back on track!

Margaret, together with her husband and children, lives in a small hut about 200 yards from our school. She has been a part of our IGA programme since 2009, when we helped her to start up a vegetable stall in the local market. Over the years, this vegetable stall has provided them with a small but steady income.

Although the business seemed to be continuing on as usual, our eagle-eyed IGA staff noticed that, over a period of some months, Margaret was depositing less in her savings book than she had in previous years. This set off some alarm bells and we started to investigate to try and find out the cause. Read more... childofhopeuganda.org/latest-news/getting-family-back-road

Groveley Precision Engineering: Complex component manufacture

[Photography and online PR for Groveley Precision Engineering]

These are some of the complex, multi-surface parts we have manufactured recently; they are typical of components we produce with 3D computer modelling and programming through to multi-axis manufacture. They include a complex mill mill turn part from bar and a helical mill turn component.

Our capabilities – employed in the aerospace, defence, motorsport and medical equipment industries – are ideal for complex/prismatic geometries in components. Manufacturing processes include full 5-axis machining and full 4-dimensional milling.

3rd Store & Secure vehicle

[Photography and online PR for Store & Secure self-storage]

We’re delighted with our third company car… … a Nissan Juke, signwritten (of course) that will help us get the word out about our two amazing self-storage facilities in Basingstoke and Bournemouth.

Thank you Elite Signs in Poole for doing such a great job… click to see the 40-second time-lapse video of how they did it!

Child of Hope: Egasi's good choice

One of the first slum children to be supported by Child of Hope in Uganda is now doing really well on a carpentry course at the Mbale municipality polytechnic. 

Egesa (15) originally dreamed of becoming a doctor when he joined the CoH nursery school, but sadly his grades didn’t match that and – after not performing too well in his Primary Leaving examinations – Bex helped him join the local polytechnic.

Egasa came from a very poor background, living with his mother and two brothers and joined CoH when it started in 2008 in a church hall.

He said: “I’m happy Aunt Bex helped me join the polytechnic, I love what I’m studying and what I’m doing especially the practical part of the course. I’m also happy that I will be able to help my family in the near future especially my mom, she struggled a lot with us to bring us up.”

According to his teachers, Egesa is performing well in school and will soon be sitting his exam for the first year.

He added: “My dream is to open up my own business, probably my own workshop, and also teach some children at child of Hope who do carpentry like me; I want to be a role model to them and I want them to know that I did not make a wrong choice.”

http://www.childofhopeuganda.org/latest-news/good-choice/

Getting Ruth back

Child abduction is not a nice issue to face, but when it crops up with any of the children at our school, our family support team kicks into action fast.

Just two weeks ago, young Ruth (8 years old) was illegally taken by her father to a village where he lived a few hours away. She had been living with her mum Betty since their separation but would often go out for a few hours with her dad – but on this occasion they didn’t come back. Ruth was being kept at her father’s home and was not able to continue her education. Betty reported this to the local police who were unable to take any action due to their very limited resources and the fact that the case crossed district boundaries.

So, our family support team liaised with three police stations to find a way forward and the police were then prepared to give Betty some support. With that in place, we advised her what to do and gave her enough money for transport to go the village and recover Ruth.

The whole process took eight days, but Ruth is now very happy to be back at school. The picture shows Ruth with her best friend Chebet and class teacher Akoth Phionah.

www.childofhopeuganda.org/latest-news

Groveley Precision Engineering: 3D printing

Our 3D printing capabilities offer you the benefit of having a physical part to hold at design stage, rather than just a 3D image – and printing prototypes allows you to significantly cut down on development time.

We have two 3D printers; one is a UP Box using PLA or ABS filament – resulting in a strong and detailed print. The other one is a Markforged MarkOne and prints in nylon, with the ability to reinforce the part with continuous carbon fibre or fibreglass layers – which results in parts with enhanced strength.

Along with providing prototypes for customers (and for our own products), we produce these items • jigs for aircraft components • unusual component shapes • one-offs • replacement parts • fixtures • tooling to hold components during production... read more

Child of Hope: UK kids helping slum kids

Children in the UK are usually very interested in learning about the lives of children in Uganda – and two Hampshire sisters were no exception. After hearing about the work of Child of Hope, Lily (9) and Heidi (6), from Oakley, decided to get personally involved by making and selling cookies!

They started by making and distributing mini flyers about their cookie sale to all their friends. They then baked cookies of many different flavours, including white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, smarties, popping candy, and coconut and raisin cookies.

Andy, the girls’ dad, had collected pre-orders from his team at work, so the girls bagged up those cookies ready for him to take to work the following day. Mum Laura had invited over a group of friends for lunch and so the girls sold cookies to them too!

Lily and Heidi then set up a stall in their front garden. The flyers had worked well and lots of their friends came to buy cookies, as well as a few sweetie bags and toys that the girls had donated.

By this time, the girls’ desire to raise money had been well and truly ignited and so, in the evening, they bagged up the leftovers and went around with their mum knocking on neighbours’ doors asking if they’d like to buy cookies, and they all did! Finally, on the Sunday, the girls sold their last few cookies (and some freshly baked cakes) at church.

Read more, including the cookie recipe: childofhopeuganda.org/latest-news/could-your-children-help-slum-kids-summer/