Great reception

What could you design with solid surface?

There really are no limits to how creative you can be! Now, this amazing reception area in HI-MACS at Syzygy’s offices in Frankfurt (which they love) isn’t a Kirolite installation… but they invite interior designers work with them to create something just as dramatic for one of their clients!

Kirolite have one of the UK’s largest facilities for solid surface fabrication and thermo-forming, and is an approved fabricator for materials HI-MACS, Corian, Avonite and Staron.

Photographs:
Location: Frankfurt, Germany
Design: 3deluxe, Germany
Fabricator: Kessler Innenausbau GmbH, Germany
Photos: 3deluxe
Material: HI-MACS® Alpine White
For information on HI-MACS see www.himacs.eu

Elijah video: abandoned child

Tiny Elijah had been left alone in the slum, apparently to die, abandoned, unwanted. Click on the picture to watch the short video of his rescue by Child of Hope staff and his eventual recovery.

Long on solid surface

New installation for our client Kirolite which produced this unusual unit that was designed to fill specific space in a company’s reception area – 8.7 metres in length using a combination of Zebrano panels and white Hi-Macs solid surface. The project was taken from initial designs through manufacture and installation, it provides both an internet café counter and reception cupboard.

We manufactured the unit in a style to match the décor of the reception area, as part of a complete building refurbishment by interior fit out and design company Burnham Workplace.  Photography by Phil Dowding

Child of Hope: grateful parents

Dad Peter and mum Mary are over the moon with her business in the Namatala slum in Uganda – it has helped them afford school fees for their three children that aren’t at Child of Hope school.

Mary Mayeku (whose other two children Vicky and Isaac attend CoH school) is a mother in the charity's Income Generating Activities (IGA) programme. She was trained in business skills and given a start-up grant. Through this, the family was able to expand their shop.

Using the money that she has earned from her first shop, she was then able to start up a small number of other complementary businesses. She now buys sacks of flour from the village and brings it to sell at her shop and sells clean water to her neighbours. They also hope to do some building work and expand their home.

For the full story, click here

Healthcare partnership helps beat malaria in Ugandan slum

Since Child of Hope started providing free healthcare for its slum-based school pupils through its on-site sick bay, malaria-related absenteeism per child has been slashed from several days to around 90 minutes!

The UK-based charity is grateful for its Ugandan partnership with JOY Hospice in Mbale, run by a lady British doctor, known lovingly as Dr Jan.

The children CoH helps come from very difficult circumstances, and clearly living in a slum is not conducive for good health. Not only does JOY Hospice regularly step in and rescue many of its children, but its staff also support the school's small in-house sick bay. They supply free malaria rapid diagnostic test kits and treatment (co-artem) which helps CoH massively reduce the amount of time children miss from class. Without that help, some of their kids wouldn’t stand a chance. Read more: http://bit.ly/1qzHzQ5

Uganda water crisis affects slum school

This week marks the start of the rain season in Uganda – and staff at Child of Hope school are praying will actually happen. There’s a vital reason for it...

With the recent severe lack of rain in Uganda, all mains water (what there is) to the Namatala slum has been shut off for the last eleven days… with more people than usual forced to drink dirty water from rivers and streams. In previous years that has led to outbreaks of cholera and typhoid plus bilharzia and diarrhoea. Local river water is used for washing clothes and bathing, so it’s not safe to drink it.

So staff are celebrating the first signs of heavy rain this week... and the school's nurses will keep monitoring our children's health and will intervene if any disease occur.

Kirolite eNewsletter

Latest eNews we produced for high-end joinery Kirolite for interior designers and interior architects: gorgeous furniture and features in wood and solid surfaces for hotels, offices, superyachts, retail space and homes.

More than oak-ay!

New office installation: When building design consultants MKP converted a barn for its own new premises in Hampshire, the company asked high-end joinery Kirolite to manufacture an open staircase in oak to match the barn’s original wood.

The split staircase had its challenges as there wasn’t a straight wall to be found in the former barn! It looks awesome in the centre of the main office, leading to a floating upper area. Stair treads incorporated a Wenge dark wood inlay.

Kirolite also designed and built four kitchens and several branded and lit storage units. MKP outlined the requirement and Kirolite handled full design and manufacture.

For more pictures, see: bit.ly/N22j3j

Latest news round-up from Child of Hope

Released today, the latest eNewsletter from UK charity Child of Hope with details of its latest activities and two new videos from its slum-based school in Uganda. Click the image to see a web version.

New video: what we do in a Ugandan slum

The latest video from UK charity Child of Hope is a summary of its work in the Namatala slum district in Uganda, providing free education and having enormous social impact with the poorest and most vulnerable slum children.

Click the image to watch it on their website, or you can watch it on YouTube and or watch/download from Vimeo. Enjoy!

Free communications and PR tips for small charities

The latest free communications and PR tips from Phil Dowding for small charities.

This issue covers building your database, news content, social media, LinkedIn charity page, tanking donors and press releases!

http://mad.ly/a5f384

Back to the kitchen

Child of Hope kitchen staff are back to their new kitchen after two weeks of tiling and improvements. Grace, head of health, reports: “Thanks to the support that enabled the kitchen to be repaired, we now have two taps within the room, new kitchen tiles and repainted walls.

“The kitchen staff is part of the health department and consists of Sam Tukei (nicknamed OB - Old Boy) and Rachel Nadudu; they are lovely cooks. They cook for around 350 people everyday; that’s around 35 kg of posho (made of maize flour) and 12 kg of beans. They also prepare 3 kg of porridge every morning for the nursery children.

“We are very happy with the new kitchen… thank you for the money as the repairs were needed to help us improve health and hygiene.” And yes, those pots are as big as they look!

That’s all white

This gorgeous minimalist kitchen in Italy isn’t one of Kirolite's installations… but they love it! Look at those amazing clean lines produced from modern solid surface material HI-MACS® – which stands out in every project for its elegance, functionality, technology and creative flexibility. It allows the development of exciting designs with no limits.

Interior designers… chat with Kirolite staff about any project where you would like to use solid surface materials. There are really no limits to how creative you can be! For more product information: www.himacs.eu

Location: Italy
Design: Simone Piva
Fabrication: Simone Piva
Photo: Francesca Bottazzin
Material: HI-MACS®, Alpine White

With expansion and an increased variety of work, Dorset high-end joinery Kirolite has appointed Nick Wyatt as project manager.
   Working alongside production manager Steve Butcher, Nick will help Kirolite meet its quality/cost/delivery control with improved scheduling systems.
   Joining from superyacht builder Sunseeker, where he was fit-out team leader over a team of 18 carpenters, Nick was keen for a new challenge in the same industry he knows so well.
   He said: “Expansion and new types of work bring their own set of problems for scheduling and production – the company is rising well to the challenge and my joining is part of its move into new areas.”

Picture by Phil Dowding

Digging his way back up

Child of Hope staff met this amazing guy on the roof of its school, shovelling cement despite his disability of losing a leg. He is Moses, one of the builders working on the construction of its third level.

He told his story that when he was working in Kampala a while back, a mob rose up, then soldiers arrived and started indiscriminately firing at the crowd (and stealing stuff from them). Moses was shot in both legs but managed to get away.

Moses says that ‘good samaritans’ helped him get to hospital where surgeons decided to remove the foot and lower leg below the knee, as it was far too damaged to save. He recovered and instead of choosing to beg on the side of the road (which is what many amputees end up doing) he thought he would still try to get some work. He has been working at the school since the foundations were built and is a very hard worker.

Whenever possible, Child of Hope recruits its staff and uses builders and tradesmen from residents of the Namatala slum where we work. They are the most needy people in the region so staff love to offer them the chance of work – it can lift them from the lowest levels of poverty.