Charities for Michaelmas 2005

KEEN

KEEN provides regular activities and special events for children and young adults with specific needs. All of our activities are free for participants and our (predominantly Oxford University student) volunteers. Our three weekly sessions include an over 18s social club, a Friday afternoon dance and arts session and a Saturday afternoon sports session. All transport for participants to these last two sessions is provided free of charge. Every Hilary term we organise a day trip to the Cotswold Wildlife Park and every Trinity there is a theme park trip. Free events are also provided through the vac.

Emmaus Oxford

Emmaus Oxford will offer some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people a place to live and work where they can feel safe, secure and work towards resettlement in the wider community. Each Community has its own business which involves the collection, refurbishment and re-sale of donated household goods providing quality items at low cost to vulnerable groups. We have secured a site and require capital funding to build the Community. The driving force behind the movement is the importance of helping yourself and others. Residents are required to sign off primary benefits and work a forty-hour week. In this way Communities become both a supportive home and also viable businesses in which the residents can take ownership and pride.

Cecily’s Fund

In Zambia there are over one million children orphaned by AIDS. Cecily’s Fund gives such children hope, a sense of their own worth and the skills to avoid disease by paying their school-going costs. Education in Zambia is very cheap but it is not free. We are enabling over 10,000 orphans (half of whom girls) to go to school. We are also enabling some of the best students from our programme to study to become desperately-needed teachers and we’re training others to run health education workshops. We work in partnership with well-run local organisations. Our UK costs are fully covered by a single donor which means every penny of RAG’s money would go to Zambia, where it would be spent carefully.

The Terrence Higgins Trust

It aims to reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS and to generally promote good sexual health. It provides services to those affected by the disease, including a helpline service, buddy and mentoring schemes, counselling schemes, complementary therapies and information. It publicly campaigns for greater public understanding of the personal, social and medical impact of HIV and AIDS. Its current campaigns include those to increase the accessibility to PEP, a drug that can help stop HIV after exposure, to ensure that HIV treatment is free for all, to ‘erase tax on rubbers’ (i.e. condoms) and to end US entry restrictions for those with HIV.

The Vidya Trust

At present, almost one third of the total child population of India does not attend school. The Vidya Trust (www.vidya.org.uk) is a U.K. registered charity which believes that education is the right of every child. To this end, Vidya raises funds for the education of children from disadvantaged communities in India. The charity is currently supporting the construction and funding of a primary school for tribal children in Kotagiri, Tamil Nadu. It also raises funds for Aseema’s Centre for Street Children in Mumbai (Bombay). Both of these projects provide access to education for children who would otherwise be deprived of it. Both projects also stress the importance of female education. Since Vidya is a small charity, any funds would make a huge difference to the work being done.