Brief Report for A Ray of Hope 2007

Another year over, and as I attempt to write a succinct, yet all embracing report for the year it humbles me when I take stock of all that has been achieved. I must begin by thanking those who head the various projects and programmes – their contribution is beyond description. They themselves, demand little but delight in being able to assist as many groups and individuals as they can. We must also proffer our thanks to the many individuals, groups and companies who both unselfishly and generously continue to support all aspects of our work. ……. And to the many  groups who have affiliated to A Ray of Hope during 2007 we welcome them and hope that through them our ethos will continue to be promoted where ever they might work. We are grateful also to those who support A Ray of Hope by their expertise in IT, marketing and promotion, and our ever growing web presence for example Phil’s science site alone is attracting up to 2000 visitors a day.

If there are highlights worthy of specific mention we must limit them to the children : we congratulate Adama Sesay,  whose painting of a tree was used as the design for a fundraising Christmas 2007 tea towel for Sierra Leone, to Binita, from Metta Centre, Nepal our best wishes on achieving remarkable examination results and qualifying for college, to brave Alice our thoughts were with her during her operation and period of rehabilitation in the Philippines, and to Victor and Franca on their birth of Ray (Buster) Lagos, Nigeria and our thanks for the children of Belarus whose paintings were used as presentations from our Naional Commission to the dignitaries at conference including the Director General of UNESCO – but this list could be endless.

Sierra Leone
Last year, Rosalind Hanson Alp, a Freetown based artist, travelled to Rogbonko to help train our teachers in teaching art . Although art is supposed to be taught in teacher training courses in Sierra Leone, few colleges can afford the necessary materials. None of our teachers had ever even held a paintbrush. Rosalind’s visit generated huge enthusiasm and since her visit the classes have been continued. In June Rosalind returned to judge Rogbonko Village School’s first ever art competition.

In March this year a cholera outbreak swept through villages in Tonkolili. When the school opened in 2003, one of the first books the Rogbonko School Trust donated to the village was a copy of the famous medical self-help book: ‘Where There Is No Doctor.’ As soon as news of the outbreak reached the village daily community meetings were held in the school. Information from the book was read out on how to prevent the spread of the disease, which is passed on through contaminated water and food. In addition villagers pooled their resources to purchase oral rehydration salts. Sadly many hundreds of people were killed in the outlying villages. But due to the precautions taken by the villagers of Rogbonko, not a single soul was lost.

Five years ago when we first travelled to Rogbonko Village to discuss the possibility of building a school, one of the people we met was Augustine Kamara. Augustine was then the secretary to the village committee and one of the only literate people in Rogbonko. He soon proved himself indispensable to our efforts, conducting a village census with Simon (Westcott), acting as translator and record keeper. Our first school was built a short time afterwards, entirely by volunteers and made of bamboo and thatch. Augustine seemed the obvious choice to become the first schoolmaster of what was then just an informal school. Over the years we have worked to raise standards by employing fully qualified teachers. Thanks to a generous individual donation to the Rogbonko Village School Trust, we were able to offer our untrained teachers the chance to go to college and Augustine was the first to gain a place at Makeni Teacher Training College. The Trust bought him a bicycle to enable him to attend classes. That was three years ago. This summer Augustine passed his Final Exams to become a fully qualified teacher. We are delighted to offer him our wholehearted congratulations.

Allie Smith, educational consultant and former London primary school headmistress, had to pull out of the April 2007 London Marathon after months of training following a back injury days before the event. Allie’s plan was to raise sufficient funds to send herself to Rogbonko to help train our teachers in new teaching methods. As it turned out almost all of you who sponsored Allie decided to send the money anyway. £750 in all was raised. Allie was immensely touched by your support and will be off to Rogbonko in 2008.

This year’s Christmas fundraiser is the Rogbonko Village School Tea Towel, based on a design by Rogbonko School pupil and competition winner Adama Sesay. Adama had her first art class a year ago when Freetown based artist Rosalind Hanson Alp visited Rogbonko. We hope you’ll love the result as much as we do and agree it makes a perfect Christmas gift.

All nine children who sat the secondary school entrance exams this year have been successful. That brings to a total of 22 the number of children who have graduated from Rogbonko. All are enrolled at Magburaka Secondary School, their fees paid for by the Rogbonko Osusu Fund, set up by the villagers to help provide their children with a secondary education. For the second year running Rogbonko School candidates achieved the highest exam marks in the area.

Rogbonko Village School Trust supplied and sent £900 worth of sports equipment, including a table tennis table, volleyball and badminton equipment. At the request of the school staff, Rogbonko Village School Trust has supplied funding for several sewing machines and sewing equipment to begin needlework classes at Rogbonko School. Teachers and pupils plan to sell the class’ creations to help raise funds for their school.

Uganda
Kabubbu Community Library continues to serve Kabubbu and all the communities around it. This year, more people have obtained literacy and numeric skills. Functional Adult Literacy has helped improve incomes and life in the communities. This year, the library has obtained three computers networked and on a printer. All the three librarians have been trained to use these computers. Thanks to all our supporters and friends.
Like in the previous years of its existence, Kabubbu Community Health Center has this year improved its services towards the health of the Kabubbu people and those in other communities. More children, pregnant mothers and other adults have been saved from Malaria the Killer. Immunization, prevention of diseases, treatment and the entire health of the communities has been greatly improved through the health center.  
The Carrier Pigeons have registered great success this year. The message about HIV/AIDS has continued to be planted in the minds people throughout the nation through Music Dance and Drama. The youth dispensing this message have had an outlet for their good talents while saving the lives of others. A good number of shows have been performed this year resulting in many people taking HIV tests to be certain about their status. Counseling has enabled many of those found positive to live their lives with hope.
This year, the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) Center has continued to provide children with a good start in life. Also, the ECCD has completed the construction of another center in Manyangwa similar to the one in Gayaza. This great success means that parents and children from the areas around Manyangwa will now be able to access the services of the ECCD without having to travel far.
Manangwa The teachers and pupils have recently embarked on a massive tree planting exercise in the school preserved property for trees, and in the immediate community. The trees planted are mainly fruit trees. The seeds are developed in nursery beds at the school. Students are also encouraged to carry on the exercise at there homes. The pupils have also come together and pooled bits of their pocket money to start up a piggery project. Their agriculture teachers initiated the idea with the aim of using is for study purposes and a way of encouraging and educating them on small projects that they can do for an income. The children learn basic skills of looking after animals and develop a love for them. Carrying this project out is hoped to encourage children to think about animal husbandry as a vacation where they can earn money for a living. The present animal stock is composed of 10 pigs, three of which are under gestation. When the gestating pigs deliver, we hope to start an outreach project where the children can in groups, or individually take a pig home and start rearing it using the skills acquired from the school farm project. In this initiative, children believe “Nobody is too poor to have something to give, or too rich to need anything”. With this in mind, members believe that tragedy or fate has no timetable, it can happen to anybody. So here, children continue to contribute whatever they can in cash or kind with the aim of helping fellow pupils in need. They contribute anything from pens and pencils to school uniform. This makes all feel love irrespective of their fate. Since its start four years ago, the initiative has benefited over 60 pupils.

All the schools supported by A Ray of Hope, individually and through CASSO, successfully ended the year. They were able to prepare and help their candidates at both the Primary and Secondary levels seat for the National examinations, and are now waiting for the results due next year starting February. This year, A Ray of Hope started to engage itself in helping Ugandan children acquire basic computer skills in school with a pilot project at Cambridge College – Gayaza that saw seventeen students trained and awarded with certificates. It is our hope that in the coming year, we will be able to acquire computers for many of our schools. From us in Uganda , we would like to say THANK YOU to A Ray of Hope, its Director, all our friends, funders and well-wishers from around the world for making 2007 a year of success for us. To you all, may 2008 be a blessed year.     

Nigeria

Values in positive Citizenship (Module 1& 2, Lagos and Module 3, Kano)
DESTINY (Developing entrepreneurial skills that Impact Nigerian youths) programme.
Young Professionals for integrity event in Abuja with Fix Nigeria Initiative of EFCC.
Financial Intelligence Workshop
Growth of the Network and affiliation of many more organisations.
Media coverage

The grass roots projects are DIFN (Development Initiative for Nigeria), OCDN (Oke-Ogun Community Development Network) and Fantsuam Foundation.  The voluntary work is on a training programme for teachers and trainers.  The training programme is called "Teachers Talking" and is an introduction to ICT (Information and Communication Technology).

Chief Adejumo had planned my programme with  OCDN.  It was a full programme,- including visits to Ago-Are and Okeho as well as meetings in Ibadan.  I will mention some of the key meetings. In Ago-Are I presented some educational books to Mr Timothy Oyawale, for the Peter Oyawole Memorial library, caught up with events at the InfoCentre, and visited a local school which is making use of the InfoCentre facilities. In Okeho I visited a micro-finance programme, and a school which is taking part in the Teachers Talking programme (supported by the manager of the Ago-Are InfoCentre - Pastor David Oyebola Adeso). In Ibadan I attended a meeting with Professor Francis Egbokhare (Director of the D.L Centre), Dr Tunde Adegbola (Director of ALT-I), Chief Adejumo and Pastor David to discuss ongoing collaborative projects. The progress being made is very encouraging.

On Thursday November 13th - I flew to Abuja, and travelled on to Kafanchan to work with Fantsuam Foundation.  I presented a new training course within the Teachers Talking (TT) programme, for ICT trainers at Fantsuam Community Learning Centre.  I also worked with two teachers from Jos who attended a previous Teachers Talking programme and are now sharing the programme with nine schools in their local chiefdom.  I was visited by the chairman of the Kagoro Town Hall Committee who has recently taken over responsibility for the development of a "multi-media centre" there. We made plans for ongoing collaboration and support, and I also made a site visit.

India on the Bay of Bengal

Orphange built  in Andrapedesh for 33  Tsunami orphans

Small herd of water buffalo purchased  to fund the orphanage

Church/School built for the local village children.

Plot of land acquired for play and sport for the children in the orphanage.

Arrangements made  for teachers to go out from UK to the villages to take educational supplies, and to teach English

Cemented relationships for future communications with the local communities and goverments,via education and cultural awareness.

Philippines

Financed Alice’s operation on her hare lip and cleft palette.

Sent finance to pay for Alice, and 7 other children’s education

Supplied the money to buy food for 70 poor people who live on a dump site in Manilla Bay.

Provided the money for fishing tackle to be bought, so that the people living on the dump can feed themselves with dignity.

We bought fish by the shoal, so the children could sell fish on little stalls at the side of the road

Paid for a new roof on a mans house to accommodate his 12 children.

Hungary
Purchased a lovely old building in Nyirabeltek. It is used as a community Centre, and a resource focus, also used for the Church, and Driving school, and for accommodating, people who need refuge, as we have had the out buildings, which were the old horse stables, turned into sleeping quarters for visitors from the UK ,and for those who go out for training missions, to learn how to work with poor children and families. It has been used for a crèche, and the garden is used for out side events such as parties, and sports.

A Governmental Embassy building in Budapest has been secured, where we can have meetings, on a Governmental level, to see what we can do to help the underprivileged through education, and marrying schools in UK with the poorer village schools . We helped David in Bag, move into a bigger house more suitable for his wife and 8 children. It still has only 2 rooms and very basic, no toilets, no inside running water, we aim to correct that this year. We have started up a new project in the city, where Csiki Lajois is helping the street people to be empowered, by befriending and finding homes and clothes and food. This is in Wessensley Ut, and at first there were 20 people, now there is over 100 on the list. We went to Hadunnajas and Eged, where we have united the towns, by sending Csiki Lajois and his wife Erika, to connect the towns and villages so they can share their experiences, and start to build long term friendships, in a view to representing The Sunflower Trust. In doing this we have set up a data base of needs and wants, so  every one can help each other. Its about giving people a lift up the ladder, and helping them to help themselves.

Israel
In Jerusalem, we are supporting 21 poor children from the Domari community.

Amoun Sleem teaches ,and looks after the children.

We supplied Amoun with education supplies, and hairdressing supplies so they could teach the children beauty and hairdressing.

Amoun teaches them the basics of reading and writing, and brings in specialist play workers.

These children are from one parent families, or orphaned. They are very much persecuted, and 2 years ago one little boy of 9, had his throat cut, and he died. There has been a lot of fear, and anger, about since then, and the Domari, have had  to keep a low key, in Jerusalem.

Most of the Domari women, are widows, and go begging in the hustle, bustle of the old city Jerusalem  We introduced them to my friends at the Jerusalem School, and firm friendships have been made. The Children are going to visit this unique, private school. New ideas and cultural crafts, have been shared, and the children have enjoyed, seeing how the other side lives.

As part of Mel’s ongoing work of supporting sharing and cross pollination

The Irish band is now going to Hungary, to play their traditional music

The Hungarian Gypsies Violinists, and singers are going to Manchester and Budapest

The South Africans, who are famous singers, in ballads and cultural and Christian music will be going to Israel, Hungary, and Zambia,

Two of the ladies from Belfast are coming out to India with us

We have set up a Sunflower Trust in Belfast

 Belarus

Several on going projects including a little support to Art and Music school and school for Diagnostics and Development.
Successful art competition from which the winning entries have been used by UK National Commission to UNESCO for presentations to Director-General of UNESCO – Welsh Secretary of State and the UK’s ambassadors to United Nations and UNESCO.
Interesting first steps being made with the town of Narowlya, also Narowlya’s historical and cultural museum.
Joint projects with international schools and Mozyr’s Ecological Museum
Assistance provided to several organisations working in Belarus.

Projects 2007

Programmes in 

Romania, Nepal, Hungary, Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Belarus, India, Malawi, Kenya, Jordan, Nigeria, Philippines, Israel, India

also

 Purchased

Chicken  42   Ducks    44    Pigs  22    Goats   8    Sheep  8    Cows    8     Buffalo 16

Supplies Delivered to

Sierra Leone
Art supplies, paint brushes notebooks miscellaneous items
Sports items - skipping ropes, footballs, large small, mixed small balls bats etc
Small consignment of books for new library

Kenya
Educational posters, teachers' notes and resource material
Educational posters and resource material for 50 primary schools
Educational supplies for 6 secondary schools
Educational posters, shoes, leotards, dance supplies, track suits. toys etc

Romania
Miscellaneous supplies and small toiletries
Specialist medical equipment

India
Fleeces, miscellaneous clothing and toys

Israel
Fleeces and miscellaneous items

Nigeria
Diplomas and trophies for Positive Citizenship Course (x2)
Small finances computer supplies
Drawing paper and pencils
Competition trophies and prizes

St. Vincent and Grenadines
Educational posters, teachers' notes and resource material

Nepal
Some finances for heat and lighting
Finances for new raincoats, educational supplies and an award.

Uganda
Educational posters, mixed text books, mixed stationery, miscellaneous items
and shoes, leotards , general dancewear
trophies and sports wear

Philippines
Dance supplies, shoes, leotards, dance tops, lycra trousers, track suit tops

Brazil
Educational posters, teachers' notes and resource material

Zambia
Educational posters, teachers' notes and resource material

Mozambique
Sports' supplies - educational posters, teachers' notes resource material.
Night attire, sports' tops and miscellaneous items
Sports items - skipping ropes, footballs, large small, mixed small balls bats etc

Ghana
Educational posters, teachers' notes and resource material

India and Philippines
Suitcase, leotards,  dance wear, dance shoes baby and adult clothes
tracksuit tops paint brushes etc.

India and Mozambique
Pencils, pens and notebooks.

Belarus
Miscellaneous items, educational supplies, natural heritage resources, 
small musical expendables, trophies
Dance supplies/gymnastics items and education packs.

Tanzania and Philippines
Blankets, baby clothes, dance wear, leotards etc

Ethiopia
Sports supplies including mixed balls, skipping ropes, small games etc

Tanzania
Baby clothes, dance and gymnastics items - miscellaneous Educational items.

Link Community Development  Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Malawi
Educational packs - posters - teachers' resource material and lesson plans

Visits to
Israel  January 
Sierra Leone January
India February 
Positive Citizenship Module Nigeria 
Visit to Mozyr Belarus April
Art Competition Belarus
Visit to Nigeria April
Classics Competition UK France and Germany
Visit to Nigeria June
Visit to Hungary May
Visit to Belarus July/August
Visit to Nigeria November
Positive Citizenship Module Nigeria

Events Planned
Further citizenship modules Nigeria
Visit to Tanzania
Visit to Nigeria
Visits to Belarus
Water and forest projects various countries.

……….. and undoubtedly much more.