PROJECTS

Project Choice for November 2021

Project choice for November 2021 is MicroLoan Foundation. 

Read their Thank You letter here: documents/ty-letter.pdf

 

Project Choice for April 2021

Project choice for "Out of Africa" April 2021 is The Free to Live Trust

 

Project Choice for March 2020

Project choice for March 2020 is Syria Relief

 

Project Choice for February 2020

October's Project Choice is KidsOR

 

Project Choice for October 2019

Medecins Sans Frontieres

October's Project Choice is Medecins Sans Frontieres.

 

Project Choice for September 2019

Raising Futures Kenya

September's Project Choice is Raising Futures Kenya.

Raising Futures Kenya's vision is a world in which all children and young people in Kenya live with dignity, opportunity and hope.

The charity creates opportunities for vulnerable children and young people in Kenya to break the cycle of poverty and inequality and fulfil their potential.

 

Project Choice for July 2019

VILLAGE AID   1067322

Village Aid is a charity established 30 years ago working to transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in some of the world’s poorest countries across rural West Africa.  Village Aid believes that African people are best placed to deal with the challenges in Africa.The charity works with local African partner organisations in Gambia, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Cameroon. By providing essential skills and resources, they help them to deliver education, livelihoods and conflict resolution projects. The charity trains these organisations in the skills they need to become sustainable and independent in their own right. Village Aid's long-term aim is that when they leave the communities, our partners will be stronger, independent and self-sufficient. They can then help the most marginalised and vulnerable people to break free from poverty.

 

Project Choices for June 2019

Africa on the Ball SC044499

Chosen for our June project, Africa on the Ball is a Scottish Charity using sport to empower communities in Africa. They believe sport can be a powerful vehicle for tackling a range of societal programmes and run a number of programmes to advance education, healthcare and enterprise. In Kalingalinga, Zambia they run a female empowerment through football programme, an outreach project delivering sport and health messages to nearby deprived areas and an educational scholarship fund for members of the Kalingalingasupporters teams. They are currently fundraising to ship a container full of books and sports equipment to Zambia which will be converted into a community library and learning centre.

 

Project Choices for May 2019

ON CALL AFRICA  SC041546    

Chosen for our May project, 0n Call Africa aims to improve access to healthcare in rural Zambia through Treating, Teaching and Training.
Treating: Mobile clinics deliver primary healthcare directly to patients in rural villages. Volunteer  doctors from the UK diagnose and treat common complaints and laboratory services are provided, capable of diagnosing HIV, Malaria, STIs and pregnancy without requiring patients to travel to the city.
Teaching: as well as through the clinics, interactive health care  sessions are designed to address the issues the people have identified as most pressing.
Training: In order to achieve a sustainable healthcare syste4m, volunteers train Community Health Workers (CHWs) to attend to the health needs of their village. They help to improve the CHWs access to essential medicines and to better integrate their role with existing health services.

 

 

Peter McEleny from Signpost International was the speaker at May's project lunch. The event raised a very respectable £340 and Elspeth Caldow, Common Grounds' Convener, would like to thank everyone involved in helping raise this sum.

 

Microloan Foundation SC041941

Microloan Foundation are dedicated to helping the poorest women in rural Africa to transform their lives by means of loans and ongoing business training. Over 150 local people are currently employed in Malawi, Zambia and Zimababwe supporting over 35,000 clients at any one time. Loan and Training Officers identify women who have the potential to run a business. The women form groups, learn about business principles and start trading, such as selling vegetables, trading second hand clothes, or making tea and fritters. After four months (on average) the women have repaid their loans and are earning a regular income. As a result they can then apply for an another loan to help grow their business.

(previously supported 2016)

 

Signpost International SC038850

Signpost International is an international  charity, based in Dundee. Their Ugandan project typically enables whole communities to take action against poverty and become more sustainable. It has seven ‘prongs’ .

1. Clean water - adding a well/rainwater harvesting facility, if children don’t have water supplies near their school , absentee/disease rates are much higher.

2/3. Pink Project / Education - to provide reusable sanitary supplies as girls’ school attendance is a lot lower than boys, because of lack of  accessible items during their periods. There is also a focus on HIV and Aids education.

4. Small Businesses - one example is women learning  how to make reusable sanitary kits and soap to sell and gain an income.

5. Farming - teaching people to grow the right crops to produce higher yields.

6. Latrines- Improving facilities is helping to reduce harmful diseases.

7. Tree Nursery - Provision of seeds and training to set up tree nurseries (e.g. mango and avocado) to help overcome rapid deforestation for fuel.

 

 

August 2013 - Kenya Children's Home (SC020037)

Kenya Children’s Home (KCH) was established by the Balcraig Foundation in 2002 when the Scottish charity took over the running of the former Thomas Barnardo House in Nairobi. The orphanage is the flagship project of KCH and is home to up to 200 orphaned, destitute and abandoned babies and children at any one time. Since its inception, KCH has grown significantly, extending its support far beyond the reach of the Nairobi orphanage, with the commencement and development of many other community projects throughout Kenya.  These projects continue to enrich the lives of many hundreds of Kenyan children and adults every day.

 July 2013 - Freedom from Fistula (SC0339493)

Today, an estimated 2 million women in Africa are suffering fro obstetric fistula caused by prolonged, obstructed childbirth and lack of access to maternity care. The effect on women is devastating and often condemns them to a life of solitude and despair. Our aim is to help these women by providing free surgeries to heal their fistulas, free maternity care to prevent fistulas and ensure safe childbirth, and training local healthcare workers.Our vision is for all women in Africa to have access to healthcare during pregnancy and childbirth and to help eradicate obstetric fistulas.

In order to achieve this, we have a number of concrete objectives:-

•To expand or develop fistula services across Africa, particularly in Sierra Leone, Kenya, Malawi, Liberia and Zambia

• To partner with existing organisations and facilities already providing fistula surgeries


• To train surgeons to repair obstetric fistulas


•To train midwives in the highest standards of maternal healthcare

• To finance access to healthcare during pregnancy and labour

• To finance caesarean sections to stop obstetric fistulas occurring

• To improve the prospects of women in Africa suffering from obstetric fistula