Report of the Third World Group for the Year 2018/19
As Always, Thank you for your generous support of our collections for our Third World charities during 2018. The years’ Ten weekend collections raised £6558.63
14/01/2018 – Save The Children/Rohingya appeal – £774.80
28/01/2018 – Send-a-cow – £612.56
11/02/2018 – Mines Advisory Group (MAG) – £576.49
08/04/2018 – The little way association – £482.19
06/05/2018 – Columban Missionaries – £977.40
03/06/2018 – SPICMA – £604.48
05/08/2018 – Railway Children – £533.14
26/08/2018 – Street Child – £598:13
11/11/2018 – Sylvia Wright – £773.44
09/12/2018 – Toilet Twinning – £626.00
Also, during the year we did host a visit by Sylvia Wright for updates on the Trust’s work:
Evening with Sylvia Wright 18th July and updates given at Masses 8/9 December 2019
Tony Allinson, Chair of the Sylvia Wright Trust, and his wife Christine visited us with Sylvia in July, and we had a small celebration during the break for Sylvia who had her 80th birthday earlier in the year. She looked less tired than last year, perhaps because the Hospital is now no longer her responsibility. There were about 20 people present and we had an excellent update from Tony before questions to Sylvia. There was a lady from outside the parish who knew Sylvia and had seen the notice of her visit to us in the Trust’s newsletter. £120 was given to Sylvia in donations from the evening.
Tony visited India in November so we had further news when he spoke at the Masses in December. Twenty two children joined Rangammal School in June 2018 including older children who have made little or no progress at “regular” schools which have little provision for the education of the deaf. The Day Centre has appointed a physiotherapist to work with the children who have muscular or skeletal problems and need special exercises to moderate and improve their condition. 140 students have qualified from the Nursing College, of whom some were helped by the Trust’s bursary fund, and all have found jobs. The therapy pool in the new Day Centre is in regular use and provides great benefits to the severely disabled children. Suzanne Rose, the Trust’s visiting hydrotherapist, has paid her fourth visit to enhance staff training. The bursary Fund continues to help the more needy students from the school to go on to further education. Sylvia has decided to stay permanently in India but recognises the urgent need to develop governance, management and local networking and fundraising to secure her legacy.
Thank you to all in the parish who have so generously continued to support the excellent work the Trust is doing for the disadvantaged children in India.
FAIRTRADE REPORT
Thank you to all those who honour our parish commitment to Fairtrade by serving and buying fairly traded goods, thereby helping the poor in this particular way. Our total for the sale of goods from the stall was £2391.21, an increase of £182.61 on last year. This excludes the total from goods sold at the Fairtrade Christmas event which was £2182.90 and £135.28 was sent to Tradecraft Exchange from the sale of tickets and refreshments. It was a fun evening as usual and we had limited new clothes to model but enterprising models who mixed and matched beautifully. A huge thank you to them and the stall holders who spend many hours helping to set up, sell and pack up afterwards.
Tradecraft is going through a cost cutting exercise and has drastically reduced the number of staff working for them and the number of lines they sell, particularly in the craft area. After difficulties of obtaining various foodstuffs – Fairer World (on Gillygate) are now seeing them on the shelves again but are sourcing various items from other suppliers. Please continue to support the stall so that we can continue to help in the provision of better lifestyles for those whose life choices are very limited.
What Fair Trade Means:
If a group marketing goods wishes to receive Fairtrade certification their workers must all have equal rights, they must not employ any child labour and they must use the minimum of chemicals in the production of their goods, thereby caring for the environment. Once they have that Fairtrade mark, they are guaranteed a fair minimum price for their goods with a long term commitment to the purchase of the goods and an extra bonus which the group/community can use for specific needs in their community eg health provision, education.
Please consider volunteering to help the Third World group. We meet every few months to decide on the charities to support and to organise the collections for those charities. If you are interested in joining please contact us via any of the 3rd World members – we are usually at one or other of the Margaret Clitherow masses – or at the Fairtrade Stall which is usually on the second Saturday/Sunday of each month.
(More help on our monthly Fairtrade Stall would be nice, either on a Saturday evening (from 4.00 onwards) and/or help after mass on Sunday mornings.
Explanations of the (smaller) Charity Names:
Send-a-cow Helps communities identify and value resources they already have: their land, their families, their communities and capacities. Together, communities build a vision of a better future. Then, through training in farming, and by tackling social issues such as gender inequality, we enable them to acquire both the hope and the skills to get there.
SPICMA stands for ‘Special Projects In Christian Missionary Areas’. the charity aims to reach out to the poorest and most marginalized in the developing world; it is open to the needs of small communities and individuals who neither fulfill the criteria nor have any way of approaching the larger agencies. They support and work through the various Missionary Congregations and Diocesan Clergy as we can then be certain that the relief gets to the people it is intended for.
The Little Way Association aims to help the poor, needy and sick in developing countries throughout the world. Most of our supporters are Roman Catholics, but some of our benefactors belong to other Christian denominations and other faiths.
Railway Children provides protection and opportunity for children with nowhere else to go and nobody to turn to.
Every year thousands of children across the UK, India and East Africa run away or are forced to leave homes that have become unbearable through poverty, abuse, violence and neglect.
Street Child Aims to Help Children into Education in the worlds Toughest places – if all children left school with basic reading skills, 171 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty. Street Child also aims to help the millions of children who live, sleep or survive on the streets
Toilet Twinning Teaches families how to build a basic toilet, have access to clean water and learn about hygiene – a vital combination that saves lives. (2.3 billion people don’t have somewhere safe to go to the toilet)
