Child of Hope: Travel and holidays that donate to slum kids!

If you book a holiday or travel through travel agent Not Just Travel, the company makes a generous donation to Child of Hope!

CoH has entered into a partnership that will help us raise ongoing funds for our work with slum children. And at the same time, you may even pay less than going direct to holiday operators – and you’ll be delighted with the amazing range of holidays that are on offer, and the very personal service the staff give you.

To make contact, first visit our joint website www.notjusttravel.com/child-of-hope

Not Just Travel is probably the UK’s fastest growing travel company and part of Hays Travel Ltd. Its travel consultants have over 450 leading brands and tour operators to choose from and over 12 million holiday options at any given time – it’s no wonder it is now the trusted travel partner of major organisations such as Marie Curie, The Royal British Legion and London University.
For more information, please click here

Child sponsorship worked for Peter

[Online PR for slum charity Child of Hope]

This young guy, Peter (aged 15), used to be a street kid… but is now pretty chuffed with himself for reaching secondary school.

He was 8 when we first met Peter’s mother, who begged and pleaded with us to help her son. He had run away from home and was living on the streets. He had grown tired of the constant gnawing hunger of poverty and had been seduced by the seemingly free lifestyle of the street kids.  

He seemed like a good candidate for our help and brought him into our nursery. But it was tough going for the first year of two – a life on the streets changes a child and he was constantly fighting with other children and generally getting into all kinds of trouble.  

After a lot of love, attention and strict boundaries, Peter’s life started to turn around and we realised that he was actually pretty bright! His mother died a couple of years ago and Peter now stays in our children’s home. 

His life since coming to Child of Hope hasn’t always been easy going, though. A couple of years ago ‘the street’ called to him again and we had a tough job getting him away from bad influences. But he turned things around again and worked really hard for his primary leavers’ exam. He managed to achieve division 2 results (narrowly missing division 1 by just 1 mark) and is happy to be in secondary school…  a huge change from the certain life of crime (and possible early death) that was his future on the streets back in 2008.  

He said: “Thank you to Child of Hope for sponsoring me. I am now living a good life and in the future I’d love to be an astronaut – but if that doesn’t work out I’m hoping to study to become a doctor. Please continue helping us.”

Would you like to sponsor one of the children at our school? Click here for more information.

Groveley Precision Engineering: FaroArm helps maintain on-time delivery and top quality

[Photography and online PR for Groveley Precision Engineering]

We have installed a FaroArm portable coordinate measuring machine (CMM) – which allows us faster verification of product quality by performing 3D inspections, tool certifications, CAD comparison, dimensional analysis and reverse engineering.

Peter Bennet said: “The £40,000 investment in equpment, software and training will help us to maintain our current SC21 Silver rating of 100% on time delivery and 99.99% quality.”

A superb first article inspection tool, the arm quickly verifies the part to the master 3D model (or drawing) and creates a report, which streamlines the process.

Reverse engineering is an option enabling quick digitisation of a part or object and creates a fully-surfaced CAD model which can then be used to reproduce an item. That provides a way to generate missing CAD files and update or create as-built documentation.

Being portable, the FaroArm avoids the removal of parts from a machine to a temperature controlled inspection area for surface or dimensional inspection of the part. Now we have efficient in-line, in-process and on-machine inspections for many parts – which delivers consistent, accurate measurements directly on or at the machine producing the parts.

How do we choose the children to join our school?

[Online PR for slum charity Child of Hope]

Bex is often asked: “How do you choose which children to take into Child of Hope?” It’s a serious question and the answer is evolving and improving year-on-year. A lot of parents in the slum want their child to get a free place at the nursery school, thereby accessing all the other Child of Hope programmes (healthcare, food, primary education, income-generating opportunities for families, clothing and welfare).

Well, we won’t provide a place to a child where her family could actually afford to send her to school themselves. So, over the years, we have developed a process of assessing the homes and families that the children come from in order to ascertain if the family is suitable. 

Our staff use a form containing various 

questions that give a clear indication of how poor a family actually is. For example: How many members in the household? Can the (oldest) female head/spouse read and write with understanding in any language? Does every member of the household have at least one pair of shoes?

The welfare team visits the homes in pairs and simply writes down the answers, which are then scored and compared against other families’ answers back at the office. Local officials and pastors can recommend families for a placement, but they still have to undergo the same assessment.

Spot checks are carried out on some of the answers by a staff member outside the welfare department, as an anti-corruption method. Many families have attempted to bribe our officers in the past in order to achieve a placement for their child!

After the analysis and comparison of ‘scores’ for the families, it becomes easier to see who is most in need and therefore most suitable for a place at school. No-one has to use their judgement and no-one is biased by a ‘cute-looking kid’ or a manipulative parent!

Car storage in Basingstoke

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

You can now store your car at the Basingstoke branch of Store & Secure. It’s easy to do – we’re located straight off the A339 in the industrial area of Houndmills, next to many car dealerships and the Basingstoke railway. By arrangement, you can drive straight in, park or store your car and access it on any day, at surprisingly low cost.

If security is vital to you - and you don’t have a secure garage or appropriate parking area, your car may be prone to security risks, especially if you have to park it on the road for long periods of time. Well… Store & Secure’s car storage has 24/7 security in place, with staff on site, 7 days a week, and the latest security CCTV systems installed.

And if you’re a car enthusiast, a car mechanic working in a garage from home or you own a second car, storage allows you to free up room in your garage or protect classic cars.

For more information, prices and other reasons why storing your car makes sense, click here!

Business for bed

[Online PR for slum charity Child of Hope]

Mum-of-six Margret was so poor that she didn’t have a mattress to sleep on – which became one of her goals when we helped her start her own business selling vegetables.

Now, a few years down the line, she is able to pay for three of her children to go to a local school, while one attends the CoH School for free. Two of her children are of pre-school age, but she hopes that they too will receive an education.

One thing that has really helped in her business was to acquire proper scales, so she can sell her goods at a fair price… and be known for it.

In the future she hopes to be able to buy a plot of land and build a house on it. She said: “ Having my own business has taken away stress and worry and anxiety about the future.”

And yes… she’s been out and bought a new large mattress, which she and the children all sleep on.  

Secure document shredding

[Online PR for Store & Secure self-storage]

If you have documents that you no longer need but which are data-sensitive, we offer a secure shredding service in both Basingstoke and Bournemouth. At Store & Secure we can provide a safe and highly reliable outlet for destroying confidential documentation, which also includes recycling upon completion. 

For more information about any of our products call us on 01202 520 220 (Bournemouth) or 01256 444 445 (Basingstoke). 

Store & Secure: Shortlisted for national award – again!

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

We entered this year’s UK self-storage industry awards and guess what… our Bournemouth store has been selected as one of just three finalists in the section Best Independent Facility UK!

Our family-run company – run by sisters Lucy and Sophie Maidman and dad Brian – has now been shortlisted to the final for three years running… and won the category in 2014 for both the UK and then for the whole if Europe.

The winner of this year’s SSA UK awards will be announced at a special dinner event on September 15 in Manchester… we’ll be there!

Self-storage companies entering the awards are judged on various aspects, including what makes this business stand out from the rest and how it meets the needs of its local market. Plus, or course, things like how well the business is performing and what investments have been made for its future.

If anything, our professionalism and business systems have matured and are even better than before, so we’ve got a great chance to bring home the trophy.

Child of Hope:Christian Legacy Week… coming soon

[Online PR for slum charity Child of Hope]

Next month sees Christian Legacy Week (October 17–23) – which offers you the chance to think about the long-term difference you could make by leaving a charity gift in your will, and helps you in making that decision.

Leaving a gift in your will to Child of Hope would help ensure that your beliefs and values are passed to future generations of the people of the Namatala slum through the work we do. And it could help us change lives there, long into the future.

Christian Legacy offers a free guide to making your legacy giving and will-writing easier, including all the information you need for planning your legacy. You can download it online here.
Child of Hope is a charity partner of Christian Legacy.

Child of Hope: She beat the burns

[Online PR for slum charity Child of Hope]

Meet Alice. At nine years old she was fighting for her life after an horrific accident with a paraffin lamp that gave her third degree burns over her abdomen, chest, upper arms and neck.

But as one of our sponsored children, she received huge amounts or love and care… and has now (aged 14) completed her nursery and primary education and moved on up to secondary school. In fact, she’s the first person in her family to go to secondary school, ever!

Alice started with us back in 2008 when we first had the idea of having a nursery in Namatala slum. Her father died when she was little and her mum was struggling to bring up four children by herself (Alice was the youngest). Two years later she suffered her terrible accident and was admitted to JOY Hospice for several weeks, then spent a further couple of months living with Bex and Moses while her mind healed from the trauma.

Not long after, her mother abandoned her in Namatala and went back to her village home, taking two of Alice’s siblings with her, while the third sibling was married off in her teen years, leaving Alice on her own. But she was very happy to come to our children’s home, where she has lived ever since.

Alice is a quiet girl with a ready smile, who can’t quite believe she’s made it to secondary school. She’s not the brightest girl in the class but has worked very hard indeed.

She said:“My life is transformed from the ordinary life to a new life. I have loved studies so much. I will trust God to help me finish my studies. In future I want to become a doctor or a nurse, so I can help the needy ones in the hospitals. I like singing and dancing to gospel music, because if it wasn’t for God by my side, I wouldn’t be what I am today.”

Would you like to sponsor one of the children at our school? Click here for more information.

A month of sunflowers

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

Today in Poole Park there’s an amazing transformation going on in the rose garden… 1,000 plastic sunflowers are being ‘planted’ by staff from Forest Holme Hospice.

The sunflowers represent the 1,000 local people who are cared for each year by the hospice and they’ll be there all month, so members of the public can visit and remember their loved ones.

  

We’ve been helping out by providing free storage for the flowers at our Bournemouth facility. That’s Hannah Parsons, fundraising and communications manager for Forest Home Hospice Charity on the right of picture with our Sophie Maidman.

Each flower has been handmade by the Theatre Royal in Plymouth, which played an integral part in the famous Tower of London poppy display last year.

Forest Holme Hospice Charity supports the hospice (part of Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust) by providing £750,000 each year to fund specialist care for patients living with advanced cancer and other life limiting illnesses.

Child of Hope: Farming for the future

[Online PR for slum charity Child of Hope]

A plot of land behind the school has been converted for an ongoing project that will train our pupils in growing certain vegetables, such as potatoes, peas, beans, cabbage, egg plants and tomatoes.  

Now, thanks to a generous donation, the children will try various techniques to see which produces the best harvest and then roll up their sleeves to get muddy! They’ll learn which plants help the land and give nutrition back to the soil, how to prevent free-roaming animals spoiling the crops and the problems of waste management (plastics, etc). As a bonus, hopefully the children will be able to eat the end product!  

The foundation to this is that we want our children to understand their important role in looking after God’s creation – to grow up knowing that their environment must be cared for and to give them the skills to do so. In addition Uganda has a long tradition in agriculture/farming and many people in Uganda have a small plot ‘back in their village home’ where they grow crops to make money in addition to their ‘normal’ employment. We realised that this was something our ‘slum-dwelling’ children were missing out on.

Not bad, cod do better…

[Online PR for Groveley Precision Engineering]

It may not have been the best fishing ever (let’s blame the wind and tides…), but a great fun day in glorious sunshine! The event was Groveley’s annual staff fishing competition around Poole Bay and harbour, on board charter fishing boat Rocket.

The winner was guest Martin Small, MD of Small Engineering of Wimborne, who landed six different species.

The all-day, bait-supplied species competition was sponsored by Dorset-based engineering tooling company Trucut Tools… who’s Eddie Taylor joined in the fishing and presented the trophy.

JED Art: new oil painting - Hurricane Seas

[Online PR for artist Jan Dowding of JED Art]

Let's face it, we all like the sea. Rough or calm, it has a fascination... don't you just love sitting on a beach and watching the waves breaking? Hurricane Seas is just my interpretation of it. A new, original oil on box canvas, 24x24".

New: free networking event in Basingstoke

[Online PR for Store & Secure self-storage]

A new, free business networking event has launched in Basingstoke - and held at our premises in Houndmills.

Organised by our facility manager Kevin Chandler, the event takes place on the second Wednesday of each month at 8–10am. We will provide free refreshments – tea/coffee, fruit juice and a selection of pastries.

It’s an informal meeting with no restrictions on how many businesses from each trade sector can attend. The first meeting in August had guests from sales, HR, event organisation and business consultancy sectors.

Each guest needs to bring along their business cards to share around. One lucky guest will also win a bottle of wine.

Kevin previously ran a similar event in Bracknell, which started small and rose to an average 20 guests each month, which is a similar size we are aiming for in Basingstoke.

For more information on upcoming events or to book your place at the next breakfast on September 7, either email Kevin or call him on (01256) 444455.