Dear Friends of Oxted One World Group

No. 65 AUTUMN 2O15

ONE WORLD GROUP

OXTED

REGISTERED CHARITY NO 295800

NEWSLETTER NO 65 AUTUMN 2015

Dear Friends of Oxted One World Group,

Welcome to our autumn newsletter with news of our fundraising activities and some of the projects that the Group has supported (pages 3-7).

The group continues to flourish with membership currently standing at about 418households.As subscriptions are used to cover our administration costs it is important that we try and keep up our membership numbers so please do try and persuade your friends and relatives to join the group.To encourage people to join a new membership flyer has been produced – if you would like some to encourage friends to join please ask a committee member.

Fund-raisingcontinues to go from strength to strength.The committee is grateful to all those who have helped in any way at the recent fund-raising events and to all those who have donated money. All money received from donations as well as from fund-raising activities, goes directly to one of the OWG projects with no deductions made.

COMING EVENTS TO BE ORGANISED BY OWG

HURST GREEN FAIR -- Bottle Stall –19thSeptember, 2015

If you have your newsletter delivered by hand a committee member will be calling on you shortly to ask if you would be kind enough to donate a bottle for this event. If however you receive your newsletter by post but would like to donate a bottle we would be grateful if you could take it along to Maureen and Keith Mayers, Priest Hill Lodge, High Street, Limpsfield (Tel No. 723398), by Wednesday 16thSeptember. (Priest Hill Lodge is accessed via the driveway which runs beside the Memorial Stores). Any sort of bottles are welcome, from champagne to tomato ketchup but we cannot use bottles with an out of date code on them(they have to be thrown away), so we would like to ask you to check the date on any bottle(s), before handing them over to your collector. Last year the stall raised the magnificent amount of £990for the Group with further money being raised from some of the better quality bottles of wine at the Silent Auction.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING – 21st October 2015, 8.00pm, United Reformed Church, Bluehouse Lane, Oxted

The first part of the meeting will give members the chance to hear about the projects supported and the fund-raising activities of the Group over the past year, ask questions about the work of the Group and meet the committee members. Following last year’s acceptance of revised Articles of Association the committee is proposing an amendment to these this year so that the committee will be given the power to co-opt new committee members between AGMs. Following the business part of the meeting there will be an illustrated talkby Leyla Pearson, a Haitian who lives in Sevenoaks on the Konbit Pou Potapiman, (KPP) project. Her uncle is associated withthis Haitian charity to which OWG sent £2,500 in March of this year to cover the costs of setting up a breeding project for sheep and goats which will be run by 20 women. This will not only improve their diet but it will also give them a source of income.

After the talk refreshments will be served and there will be the chance to buy Traidcraft products as well as Christmas cards and wrapping paper (with the profit on these going to OWG funds). Also available will be Gift Cards which you can buy to give to your friends and relations to explain that instead of buying them a present you are giving a gift to OWG.

STREET COLLECTION –28thNovember 2015in Oxted.

This is an important way of raising our profile within the general community of Oxted and district as well as being a good opportunity to collect money. Help with

collecting is required. Please volunteer to Jane O’Hare (722803),if you would be willing to stand for an hour with a collecting tin.

Jane is taking over from David Steele who previously organised the street collection rota. Our thanks to him for his dedicated service on this and on the collections at Morrisons, over many years.

SILENT AUCTION – 19th March 2016, St. Peter’s Hall, Limpsfield.

PAST EVENTS AND FUND-RAISING

OPEN GARDENS – 25th May 2015, 2.00pm – 6.00pm.

On a fine day nearly 600people enjoyed looking at five very different and interesting gardens in the Limpsfield,Oxted,Broadham Green and Itchingwood Common areas. As a result a profit of £5,554was raised from the day, including £3,690 from ticket sales, £925 from refreshments, £546 from plant sales and £537 from a raffle held at one of the gardens.Thecommittee is very grateful to all those who helped on the day, whether by standing outside to man the gates, selling raffle tickets, supervising parking or by helping to provide and to serve refreshments. Thanks also to the Limpsfield Chart singers who entertained visitors at one of the gardens and to some of the local shops who were prepared to sell tickets for us in advance of the day. Particular thanks are due to the garden owners for all their hardwork, both before and on the day itself. If anyone would like to open their garden next year, the Secretary or Chairman of the Group would be very pleased to hear from them.

PROJECTS SUPPORTED

DE LA GENTE COFFEE CO-OPERATIVE,LA SUIZA, GUATEMALA.

At the beginning of the year OWG sent £1,000 from the Street collection, to enable a local charity to help the poor isolated subsistence farmers of La Suiza whose coffee crops had been ruined by blight. A crop rotation programme was introduced, the farmers have been taught the most effective ways of planting, cultivation and harvesting and assistance has been given with the purchase of seeds, tools and fertilisers and with transport. News has now been received that all this has really benefited the 80 farmers who are members of the co-operative, transforming the lives of them and their families.

TAABAR DAY CARE CENTRE, JAIPUR, INDIA

In 2008 OWG sent £1,000 to support a project centred on Jaipur railway station where children who had run away from home, had gravitated, often ending up sleeping on the platforms. The children then became vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. As a result of this support our Chairman, while on holiday, called on the Director of Taabar, a successor organisation, and saw at first hand how the project helps and protects these desperate, starving and abused children who have run away from home by giving them food, medical help, accommodation and education, but only after it has tried to repatriate as many as possible to their home. All of this was being done in temporary accommodation on rented land.

When Taabar was offered some land last year on which to build a permanent centre together with funds from a French Business School, Rotary and Local Government, OWG agreed to provide £3,000 towards the cost of the building. In July OWG agreed to send a further £1,000 to help equip their new building. The money will cover the cost of beds, bedding and fans for 25 children.

GENESIS SCHOOL, KISUMU, KENYA

Genesis School was started in 1988 for very poor street children whose families couldn’t afford normal school fees as a result of which the children often resorted to stealing food and becoming addicted to glue sniffing. Although education is now free to all, Kenya is desperately short of teachers and the poor areas like Kisumu tend to suffer the most. OWG has regularly supported Genesis School by sending money (currently £1,000 every six months), to pay the teachers’ salaries (which are much less than the normal state rate), and also to pay for food for the pupils in times of shortage and to pay for building costs when new or extra accommodation has been required. The school currently has 180 pupils ranging in age from 3 to 12. In April we heard that the area was suffering from a particularly bad hot and dry season with the wind causing dust to blow everywhere, The drought has caused the environment to change drastically leading to problems with food and water supplies. This has led to the spread of many communicable diseases such as diarrhoea and flu. OWG therefore decided to send £1,500 to Genesis to help with the provision of proper sanitation and in the provision of school supplies.

GRAMBANGLA, (GUC), DHAKA, BANGLADESH

This project aims to give education support for the children of waste pickers who congregate around a huge waste site called Matuail on the outskirts of Dhaka. Matuail receives approximately 3.5 million tons of waste per year which is sorted over by 2,500 waste pickers who earn their living by the searching, sorting, processing and selling of the waste for recycling. Most of the pickers are women, many of whom are destitute single mothers, but over half of them are children. They work 11 hours per day, earning only £1.50 per day or less. All of the workers face frequent injury from metal blades, broken glass, needles and toxic chemicals with the children’s health and development in particular being very badly affected.

Since 2012, GUC in partnership with ChildHope, has been running a community-based, non-formal school located immediately next to the dump site for 200 children aged 2-14 years to try and increase the access of this very marginalised group to their basic rights and services. Recently they have built a safe, secure and hygienic day care centre for 100 children while the women waste pickers work. This provides primary education as well as providing access to safe water and sanitation and basic health care for 200 children. They now want to re-construct two rooms to act as extra classrooms for which they have a £4,000 contribution from a local donor. However a further £4,000 is needed to put in a proper ceiling, flooring, desks and benches.

In July OWG agreed to send £2,500 to the project to help with these costs.

MISSION AFRICA, KIVULE, UGANDA

Mission Africa was founded in 2001 by Terry Charlton to bring Christianity to very remote rural areas of Africa while at the same time developing schools, churches and infrastructure to improve the quality of life for impoverished communities. Early in 2014 OWG sent £8,000 to the project, raised from the 2013 Street Collection and Christmas Appeal, to fund the building of a school for 160 children, a small shop so that villagers wouldn’t have to trek miles for provisions, and the digging of a bore hole to provide fresh water, all in the remote village of Kivule which had been laid waste in the civil war that followed the fall of Idi Amin. Last year Terry Charlton spoke very movingly at the OWG AGM about the work achieved by Mission Africa and showed pictures of the simple buildings which had been constructed from local materials and which had made an enormous difference to people’s lives.

We have since heard that the school at Kivule has been successful and now needs new classrooms. In July OWG agreed to send £1,500 to the project to enable work to start on 2 new classrooms with another £1,000 to follow when funds are available.

KOLE WOMENS ASSOCIATION (KWA) IN KOLE DISTRICT, N. UGANDA.
KWA was founded in 2008 by a group of conservationists who wanted to involve poor communities in converting waste such as paper, cardboard, sawdust and organic waste into smokeless fuel briquettes. This would help in the conservation of natural resources (firewood was becoming scarce), and also have the effect of reducing indoor pollution giving health benefits -- the use of biomass sources for fuel for cooking had led to many respiratory and eye diseases. In addition 40 women would get an income from the sale of the briquettes as well as providing a cheaper source of energy to many other poor households. In July 2014 OWG sent £2,000 to fund training in the making and marketing of briquettes and the purchase of materials such as moulds and safety equipment. We have now received several photos showing the training classes, the equipment used in the making of the briquettes, the process of making them and the finished article, alongside a large banner thanking OWG for its contribution.

KUNDAPURA, KARNATAKA, SOUTH INDIA

Last year as a result of a member hearing about our projects at the OWG AGM, the group was promised a donation of £10,000 for a suitable capital projectin memory of a family member, After some extensive research a project run by The Concerned for Working Children (CWC), was deemed suitable. CWC is supporting 300 underprivileged street and working children (3-17 year olds), from the rural areas of Karnataka State to ensure that they receive a high quality, integrated education that prepares them for adulthood and a brighter future. There are 20 million child labourers in India of whom 0.8 million live in Karnataka State. Generally street and working children are deprived of the opportunity to access quality education, or attend school at all. Without this, they have little hope of gaining the skills and knowledge that will enable them to build a better future and they would remain unemployable.

The money sent via OWG will be spent on the construction of a workshop building within CWC’s school campus. The cost of the building is £11,008 with CWC contributing £1,008. The workshop will be used to train 100 rural young boys and girls every year to a high standard in vocational skills such as carpentry, electric wiring and welding, thus ensuring that they obtain skilled jobs once they leave. The classroom has been designed to be environmentally friendly using locally resourced materials and will have a commemorative plaque mentioning OWG on the building once it is finishedThe project is visited regularly by the daughter in law of a committee member who will be able to report on progress.

GLAD TIDINGS ORPHAN CENTRE, SALIMA, MALAWI

News has now been received that the £7,000 raised by the Christmas Appeal and sent off at the end of February has achieved wonders in improving the orphan centre. Buildings have been extended and renovated, with extra rooms being provided and proper sanitation has been installed, reducing the risk of infection. In addition a solar power system has been installed which enables the facilities to be used for adult training purposes in the evening, helping to make the adults self-sufficient. The lives of many orphan children as well as adults have been transformed.

TAPIWANASHE ORPHANS PROJECT, ZIMBABWE

This project, started in 1998 by Mavis Buwa, a social worker now living in Oxted, helps AIDS orphans in a rural area. There are now 500 orphans being looked after by a village committee headed by Mavis Buwa’s daughter since Mavis had to flee Zimbabwe. OWG has supported this project several times – in 2008 it provided £1,000 to cover the cost of fencing, seeds, fertiliser and chicks when a vegetable and poultry scheme was being started to provide food for the orphans, in March 2010 OWG provided £2,380 to fund a borehole and pump to provide a safe clean water supply and in April 2012 it topped up a contribution from the URC to provide funds for sewing machines and material for income generation. In July 2015 OWG agreed to send £1,000 to help with the finishing off of building work at the new orphanage. This will enable glass to be put in the windows. A further contribution will be sent to fund floors and doors for the orphanage when funds become available.

UMEED - URBAN MOBILISATION FOR EDUCATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEVELOPMENT. LAHORE, PAKISTAN.

Umeed which means "Hope" in Urdu, was started in 1997 to help poor communities help themselves by setting up centres in slum areas that provide literacy skills, nutrition programmes, income generation projects, basic sanitation programmes and family planning for women and educational help for children who have become drop-outs. In all of the projects set up by UMEED both Muslims and Christians are helped, despite the tensions that exist between the faiths in some areas. OWG has supported UMEED several times since 1998 and we receive regular feedback about its work. In April OWG agreed to send a further £2,000 to continue the funding of a centre for mothers and children so that the educational classes can be maintained.

SUBSCRIPTIONS AND DONATIONS

ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS. These are due at the AGM inOctober. They remain at £5.00 per person. Please use the form on the enclosed AGM notice for paying subs. and forward the moneyto our treasurer, Anna Burrage, or give it to any committee member or bring it to the AGM.

DONATIONS are always welcome and are a way of increasing the number of projects (such as those described in this newsletter),that we can support. They can be added to the subs. and sent to the Treasurer.Last year we received donations of £11,060.