Corporate opportunities: start-up businesses for slum mums in Uganda

[Online PR for Child of Hope]

Child of Hope sets up mums of children at its school with business training, advice and a start-up grant – as part of its holistic approach to help lift families out of terrible poverty in the Namatala slum, eastern Uganda.

You can get involved into this life-changing, high social impact work by donating business grants (just £25 each) or by funding a post for a worker in our Income Generating Activities (IGA) team.

You can do this easily online, or if you would prefer an ongoing CSR relationship with Child of Hope, please e-mail our UK director Phil Dowding or call him on (01202) 697201. 

We have other CSR opportunities… if you are interested, please visit our corporate get involved page.

Photography by Alexander Rhind

On your bike!

[Photography and online PR for Groveley Precision Engineering]

Groveley is offering its staff tax-free cycles on interest-free loans under the local green transport plan to encourage improved fitness and to reduce pollution and congestion.

The scheme enables us to offer our employees the use of a bike and biking accessories, to the value of £1,000, tax free, and spread the payments over 18 months. So far six staff members have registered their interest.

Employees can choose their bike from independent bike shops in the local area with an option to buy it for a nominal fee at the end of the lease period. Accessories and safety equipment can be included with the bike.

Groveley is already a Bronze level member of the conurbation’s Business Travel Network accreditation scheme, which provides independent verification of the success of your travel action plan.

Playing the game, their way

[Online PR for Store & Secure self-storage]

A big welcome to our new serviced-office client Ability Counts (part of the AFC Bournemouth Community Sports Trust charity) which now rents a 150 sq ft office in our business suite.

Ability Counts gives anyone aged five years to adult with any form of learning or physical disability the chance to play football!

It provides an environment best suited to their needs, to enable them to train and play football both local and regionally. This takes place through organised training sessions, friendlies and competitive tournaments! 

Head coach Katy Shephard said: “We focus on each players ability and not their disability, allowing them to play their game, their way!”

The club benefits the community by giving the players the confidence in themselves to be able to participate in sport just like any of their friends or peers, as well as helping them to develop their social skills. It also gives the children and young people with behavioural issues an environment where they can grow away from unsociable activities. It puts everyone onto a level playing field where only their ability counts and not their disability!

For more information, e-mail Katy Shephard at abilitycounts@afcb.co.uk

Patrick

[Online PR for slum charity Child of Hope]

We’re very proud of Patrick, who we think is a real success story. A boy with physical and learning difficulties, constantly dribbling at the mouth and nose running, unable even to hold a crayon, let alone colour a drawing for his sponsor. 

He was one of the first in the school, who would have been unlikely to survive because of his problems. Now, six years he is doing well at his lessons, wrote a very neat letter to his sponsor, and is 24th in his class - where before he was firmly at the bottom. 

Although he still has physical problems, Patrick is in full control of himself now. He is much-loved at the school and we are so happy to have helped him. Without Child of Hope school, he had no chance of getting any education and if he had somehow managed to survive, would probably have ended up living and begging on the streets.

Our ‘recruitment’ policy isn’t based on how bright the children are, but simply this… to take the poorest and most vulnerable children, as agreed between our welfare workers and local community leaders. The school may not end up with the highest education results, but young people like Patrick get a huge lift up in life… and we love that.

Photography by Alexander Rhind

Living above 20p a day

[Online PR for charity Child of Hope]

We thought you’d like to see products made by some of our slum pupils’ mums – now for sale online in the USA!

Partner organisation 1000 Shillings brings a team of people each year to Namatala for a couple of months in conjunction with our Income generating Activity (IGA) team. This June they welcomed their fourth class of women from among our parents, who manufacture various bags, scarves, accessories and items of jewellery.

Similar to our IGA team, their goal is to support ultra-poor women to build sustainable businesses and move beyond living on just 1,000 Ugandan Shillings (under 20p) per day… hence the name.

Click on the pictures to see more examples of products made by our mums.

Engineer of the future?

[Photography and online PR for Groveley Precision Engineering]

Meet Luke Weeks, aged 15 – our latest work experience person. We have the distinct impression that he will make a great engineer in the years to come, and we are glad we’ve been able to point him in the right direction.

Work experience gets mixed reviews, but we find it a great way of getting young people engaged with engineering. It’s like a two-week interview for an apprenticeship… and the industry desperately needs a regular injection of those.

For Groveley, it works like this… before candidates come, we ask the local schools to check for serious interest and we interview them. if they show a genuine interest, we host two or three each year (one at a time for two weeks) and invest time introducing them to machinery and the industry.

Luke spent one week on CNC lathes and one week on CNC mills – and he excelled in helping program the CNC mills. If he’s still interested after his final year at school, we’d like to talk to him about an apprenticeship.

And modelling this year’s corporate wear…

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

Our business is now looking so smart and runs so professionally, we thought we would take it a bit further and introduce our first uniform. 

They say a corporate appearance shows that your staff are ready to do business. And that customers cannot help but be impressed by a professionally-presented member of staff in corporate wear.

So you see… it’s not just an excuse to wear a little black dress…

Books... books... books!

[Online PR for slum charity Child of Hope]

With the advent of the technology age, printed books may seem to be losing the fight against the computer. But here at Child of Hope, we absolutely lurve books!

Reading for pleasure is pretty much taken for granted in the UK, but in Uganda most people only ready for necessary information (text books, reports, the Bible, etc). But we believe that reading stories is essential for a child’s growth – not only does it improve their reading ability and vocabulary, but also their creative thinking, which leads to creative problem-solving.

When we read, we are forced to imagine… creating pictures in our minds. And between readings, if it’s a good book, the anticipation makes us imagine what will happen next. Of course, if it’s a really good book, we sit up with it all night until it’s finished!!

So we have a rare thing in Uganda… an ever-expanding children’s library! Huge thanks go to schools who have donated books, and to Pat and her team at Friends of Teso who organised the container which brought the latest batch of books over to us.

Enough… I’ve got to get back to my book!

• Picture by Alexander Rhind

On our way to Farnborough

[Online PR for Groveley Precision Engineering]

Groveley is heading to the Farnborough International Airshow again in 2016 (July 11-17) – it’s a major showcase for us to the aerospace world.

We’ll go with a clear objective; to obtain increased levels of high-quality jobs to make best use of our highly-skilled workforce – and our £600,000 investment in additional new machinery earlier this year.

2014 was a brilliant year for the show – at the opening, Prime Minister David Cameron said: “It’s great to be back at Farnborough to celebrate what I see as the very best of British industry.”

Groveley regularly exhibits at the bi-annual airshow and 2014 was an extremely positive event for us too!

Latest printed newsletter

[Online PR for slum charity Child of Hope]

We're in the process of mailing out our latest printed newsletter – if you haven’t received a copy and would like one, or a pack for your church, school or workplace, simply e-mail our admin office to make your request.

Or you can read the newsletter online… just click on the picture to read lots of new stories from our school in the slum!

Sharing space

[Online PR for Store & Secure self-storage]

We have loaned a free storage room to the Jon Egging Trust – an expanding charity that supports young people to overcome adversity and follow their dreams. 

It provides youngsters who face significant barriers to learning with access to inspirational individuals and opportunities linked to aviation, engineering and science. And it delivers accredited learning programmes to develop young people's work and life skills, provide positive role models, raise aspirations and help them re-engage with education.

The trust was set up in honour of Flt Lt Jon Egging, who lost his life in 2011 while completing an air display at the Bournemouth Air Festival; flying in the Red 4 position with the world-famous Royal Air Force Red Arrows aerobatic team.

Could self-storage benefit your organisation or business? There are lots of benefits, not least freeing up vital space in your premises at low cost… click here for details!

New volunteer Elaine

[Social media for slum charity Child of Hope]

We have a new volunteer working with us for eight weeks, on loan from the Welsh Assembly on its International Learning Opportunities scheme – meet Elaine Hepple.

Elaine is working with our various department managers on monitoring and evaluation procedures, helping them to improve their reporting techniques… will also help educate older children and teachers on study skills.

Hopefully we’ll be able to update you soon on how she got on, and her impressions of Child of Hope and the Namatala slum. In the meantime… thanks Elaine, you’re doing a great job!

It's the second half… and there’s still time to declutter!

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

Yep, it’s the start of the second half of 2015 already! All those plans you had to declutter your home or office… and it didn’t quite happen. Well, how about now then?

Take a step, back and evaluate your year so far and take action to get back on track. We’ve got plenty of tips from professionals for you to declutter your home or or office:

• Top tips to declutter your home or office space

• Top 10 office decluttering tricks

• Spring Cleaning 101: Decluttering

• The benefits of an office clear-out 

Self-storage can really help you declutter – either short-term or for the long haul. It’s so easy to hire a room at low cost… and away you go!

To start, check out our cool space guide, to see roughly how much you’d need for your stuff.

George raises £450 for charity

[Photography and online PR for Groveley Precision Engineering]
Groveley engineer George Marsh cycled 30 miles – involving some serious hill climbss – to raise £452 for prostate cancer research.

The 72 year-old from Christchurch – who has only been riding for a year – cycled with the Wareham Rotary team from Wareham to Corfe Castle, to Studland and across the ferry, around Poole harbour and back to Wareham.

We thought he was pretty amazing doing the event, so Groveley chipped in £250 to spur him on.

After taking up cycling last July, George now rides around 30-50 miles each Saturday.

Meet the staff!

[Social media for slum charity Child of Hope]

Kitted out in their new shirts for 2016... here's our school staff!

Well, most of them, they couldn't all make it for the photo! We now have more than 50 great people on the team at the school, each wearing a colour depending on the department they work in.

If you're interested in helping to sponsor a staff member, please click here!

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