City of Carlisle Overseas Aid Trust.
Registered Charity No: 519696
Website www.carlisleoverseasaidtrust.org.uk
Newsletter for 2015
We generated an income of £7509.47 this year. £ 1,883.47 was carried forward to 2016 and
£5300 was donated to the following 5 charities:
Lively Minds, empowering communities in Ghana & Uganda
through play, through Alison Naftalin.
Feedback
“Lively Minds was awarded a grant of £500 to purchase children's
books for 7 educational Play Schemes for pre-school children in
rural Uganda. These Schemes are run on a voluntary basis by 238
uneducated Mothers and they have already benefited over 1,120
children aged 3-6.”
Arughat Support, Nepal, through Nick and Caroline Cowen from Cockermouth.
The earth quake destroyed the hospital, but the biochemical
analyser which COAT funded survived and is being used in
the hospital run from tents. Rebuilding the hospital will be a
major and costly operation, so Nick and Caroline are raising
the funds to build a new school to replace the three local
schools also destroyed. COAT donated £500 towards this
project.
Feedback
“On 8th Feb 2016 we were absolutely delighted to see a series
of photos and emails from Nabu showing the start of the
building process. It was lovely to see Hari’s mother, Ama,
scooping the first trowel of cement around the steel reinforcements in the deep foundations The work is in
progress and we are considering the next instalment of money to continue the work.”
We donated £ 800 to “Days for Girls” via Jane Williamson of Brampton
Feedback
“Girls living in poverty in many countries miss between 2-3 months of school a year, too often resulting in
them leaving school as they fall increasingly behind in their studies. This happens when girls begin their
periods and don't have access to Sanitary Pads. Once no longer in school they are considered to be
marriageable, often to much older men, they then find themselves pregnant, with all the dangers that
childhood pregnancy brings to both mother and baby with the cycle of deprivation, abuse and poverty
unbroken. Days for Girls, DFGs, breaks this cycle by providing washable, reusable feminine hygiene kits, at
no cost to the girls. Kits are largely produced by Teams all around the world, women give freely of their
time and skills to produce Kits The girls receive teaching on menstruation, contraception, personal safety
and how to look after their Kit, which if cared for properly, should last up to 3 years. Girls and local
women are taught how to produce the Kits themselves, resulting in the knock on effect of them teaching
school friends, church members, village ladies etc. how to produce their own Kits locally. Each Kit costs
roughly £10 to produce in the U.K. Until receiving the wonderful gift of £800 from C.O.A.T. in the Autumn
of 2015 the Brampton DFGs Team was largely self- funding although we had received financial help to
purchase sewing machines. We have produced up to 200 Kits to date going to South Sudan, Malawi,
Kenya, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Nepal, as well as contributing various components to other Teams here
in the U.K. I regularly speak to various groups about DFGs and am open to future opportunities to do
likewise.
Girls in Malawi receiving their Feminine
Hygiene Kits from Days For Girls in February 2016
Images of Nepal, Kevin Smith, Carlisle.
Kevin came to a meeting and gave a very interesting and moving account of the challenges faced in
rebuilding homes in Nepal.
Feedback
“Dear COAT,
The £2000 you so kindly gave us went into our collective fund to try to
build a base and ground floor for the 42 homes we lost. I cannot point to
one building or any materials and say what we spent your money on but
this is our progress so far: two homes completed...bases and ground floor
8 homes bases completed
2 homes bases part completed.
Work has halted because: fuel problem with India...now solved but this has raised the price of
materials to about double and so we are waiting until we can buy things at
slightly lower prices or we will not have enough money to even complete 20
houses!
Government rules and building regulations...cannot build more than 2 storeys and have to have paperwork!!!!!
Difficult when your home has collapsed and you didn't have any in the first place.”
Rukungiri Orphan Partnership.
Judy Cave and Rhiannon Ridgewell
We donated £1500 to buy a seed planter for the farm which
provides the school with food.
Feedback.
“These beans have been planted by hand. Our new planter will
be able to cover a lot more land in the same amount of time.
Although this looks like a large crop it will not be enough to feed
approximately 1500 children, young people and staff. The seed
planter will be used to plant the next crop.”
Our Income in 2015
£3000, or half our income came from individual donations and payroll giving.
A big “Thank You” to all those people who have continued to support us.
£2000 was raised through events organised by our members.
Keith Baty and Jodie Patterson held two great musical evenings at the
University of Cumbria. Sue Buckwell held table top sales and a garden party.
The John Crouch “Burns Night” and Quiz night proved popular and profitable.
Jos Curtis added a new event in the “ History of Great Corby” night.
Our thanks to all the people who organised fund raising events.
We must also say a big thank you to:
Helen Roberts for arranging and running the “100 Club”. In its first year the club has added almost £1000
to our income.
Jodie Patterson for being our minutes secretary, and
David Reay , MAAT FIAB IFA for auditing the accounts.
And a special message to Keith Baty who has cycled through “hell and high water” to attend our
meetings, but who is now recovering from a cycling accident. We wish you a speedy recovery and look
forward to even more demanding quiz questions in the autumn.