Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts

Tuesday, 25 May 2010

Beccky updates on fundraising for St Stephens orphanage

Becky continues her efforts to raise funds for St. Stephens orphanage in Nakuru in Kenya. Becky and Ben Lock are former volunteers who went away with Changing Worlds last year. Becky writes via Facebook:
Hi David,
hope you are well.
Things are going well with fundrasing now.
Myself, Ben Lock and a few friends and family completed the London-Brighton cycle on sunday, it was good but very tough.
Once i have collected my sponsorship from that as well as another event at church i should have around £1000 which is my target to have by july when i go back to kenya for 4 weeks.
I also know that some of the others have had/ have coming up fundraising events for the orphanage and Zoe's Nakuru workers feeding programme.
The only concern that many of us still have with the orphanage is the issue of running it. We dont want to put a few more thousand into the building if there are going to be no children living there but we definitely dont want to waste the money already gone into it.
It is difficult to communicate with Karanja about this because he is so busy do you know any more about this issue?
In addition to this i am in the process of setting up a link between my mums school in worthing and Kiamaina. I did 2 assemblies there yesterday and hopefully the children are going to write letters and raise a bit of money.
Becky
We wish Becky continued good luck with her fundraising. If you feel you would like to mkae a donation, however small, it would be appreciated. Let me know via e-mail to:
david@changingworlds.co.uk

Friday, 7 May 2010

Zoe is jumping from a plane for Kenyan kids!

Zoe Kelland is fund raising for the children at Nakuru Workers. Zoe worked as a volunteer for six months at the school and identified a very important issue.

Zoe writes via Facebook:
Hello!
In May or June I will be skydiving from a plane somewhere above Nottingham and hoping to dear God that I don't just plummet into a tree.
I am doing this for the school in Kenya that I spent 6 months teaching at last year. 70 children at the school only eat one meal a day and I don't think this is fair.

ALL money raised from my skydive will pay for free lunches for these children.
  • 25p pays for one child's lunch.
  • £15 will feed a child for a term.
  • £45 will feed a child for a YEAR.
The kids are the friendliest, loveliest, most hard working people you could ever meet, and they deserve better than one meal per day. The kids who don't eat enough cannot concentrate at school and achieve so much less than they could if fed properly.
Please help them have a fair chance at doing well in school and achieving a better future for themselves.
If you could donate anything you can I, and the children in Kenya, would appreciate that so much. Just the amount we'd spend on a night out makes so much difference. To donate go to http://www.justgiving.com/Zoe-Kelland

Thank you so much :) Zoe xxx

I hope you feel you can make a donation towards Zoe's fundraising efforts. A donation, however small, will be well received.

Zoe is aiming to get UK£1 000 for the children at the school through her sky diving.

Changing Worlds has played our small part by donating UK£45 to the cause - I hope you can too!

I will keep you updated with Zoe's fundraising efforts.

Friday, 30 April 2010

Livvy completes the London Marathon and raises funds for the children in Kenya

Huge congratulations to Livvy Partington for successfully completing the gruelling London Marathon last week.

Livvy writes via Facebook:
Hope you are well, I did the marathon on Sunday and I have got £1000 for the orhanage from it so hopefully with all our fundraising we'll be able to get it off the ground this year! Speak soon, Livvy'

Livvy, a former Rugby School student, went to Nakuru last summer with Changing Worlds. She spent three months working in an orphanage for street children.

Such is the impact these kids had on her life Livvy is determined to not only give her own time but to continue to work for their benefit.

Well done Livvy!

Tuesday, 1 December 2009

James provides an insight in to life and work in Ghana

James has just returned from his teaching placement in Kumasi, Ghana. He writes:
'It was a long journey and heading out on my own was one of the scariest things I had done so far in my life. However arriving in Accra International Airport and meeting my contact, Francis, at arrivals went smoothly and before long I was on my way to my family house. The journey was not as relaxing as I had hoped as the road was not surfaced and we had a sermon that lasted several hours. However it did start to gear me up for what was to come, and I got my first real shock when I saw a man on the the side of the road with no clothes and just standing against a wall crying. We drove straight past on the bus and I thought to myself that people must see this all the time and that is why they do not appear to care.

That perhaps gives a bad view of what the people of Ghana were like, yes they were tough and they had to be to survive but on the other hand I have never been exposed to such a close and intense community spirit. The people really do look out for each other and you see it everyday when someone will give a hand to a complete stranger, not because the person has asked for it but because the they have noticed that they need help. This is not something that happens much in our society and though it was strange at first I quickly adapted and it was not long before I was helping push carts and even cars along the street when they got stuck or helping ladies carry water and baskets around the city.

My host family was lovely and I instantly felt like part of the family, I got on very well with their daughter who did most of the house work as in Ghana the younger you are the more you seem to have to do. Once I started school and the orphanage I just got immersed in it all. It was a long day starting at 6am to get to school on time and then finishing at 6pm when all the kids at the orphanage had been fed and were starting to get sleepy.

School was great, the teachers treated me well and I really got into my lessons making sure math’s was fun and teaching the kids music before school so they could sing new songs in assembly. We even went on a few school trips to play football and to a dance contest. The orphanage was hard, I was working with kids ranging from new born babies to 6 year olds. A lot of them were disabled in some way and everyone’s needs were different. Keeping everybody happy all the time was a full time job and I have utmost respect for the sisters and ladies who worked there every day.

It really was an amazing all round experience and I loved every minute of it. I am not ashamed to say there was a tear in my eye as I left. I will definitely be back to visit all the friends I made as soon as I can find the time. Its a cliché to say the words “life changing experience” but its true in every way and I think the thing I learnt most about in my whole trip was me.


James has been an excellent ambassador for Changing Worlds in Ghana and we cannot thank him enough for all his efforts and enthusiasm.

If you would like to contact James then do drop him a line to:
waldomagician@hotmail.co.uk

Do have a look at the Changing Worlds Facebook account where James has kindly sent us his version of the 'Banana Dance'! - makes for great viewing!

Friday, 30 October 2009

Congratulations to Azafady

Congratulations to Mark Jacob and the Azafady team on this news!

Dear Friend of Azafady,
We wanted to give you a short update on everything going on with Azafady this October. We have some exciting developments with Pictet & Cie, a leading private Swiss Bank, who have chosen to support Azafady as part of their commitment to the Pictet photography prize and global sustainability. The Prix Pictet is an annual search for photographs which communicate powerful messages of global environmental significance under the theme, this year, of 'Earth'. And, for 2009, Pictet & Cie will support Azafady's Voly Hazo project that aims to preserve the earth from degradation and the eventual desertification that is seen so widely in Madagascar, with a programme of tree planting and conservation of the natural forest.

Mark and his team

One of the short listed photographers for the Prix Pictet, Ed Kashi, has been commissioned to visit Madagascar with the Azafady team in order to produce a series of photographs that will highlight many of the issues that we are focusing on in this unique and endangered environment. Ed Kashi will visit Madagascar in January with an exhibition of his work following in the Spring. Please see the press release below for more information on the Prix Pictet.

This is really exciting news for everyone at Azafady, so we hope you will share in our excitement and keep in touch with everything going in Madagascar and with Azafady. We have recently launched a new blog at:
www.azafady.us/blog and, if you are not already, please do become a facebook fan of Azafady at: www.facebook.com/AzafadyMadagascar - where there are lots of updates, pictures and news from our projects in Madagascar.

Finally, thank you all for your continued support of Azafady and our work in Madagascar.

Best wishes,

Mark

Mark Jacobs
Managing Director

Azafady Studio 7 1a Beethoven Street London, W10 4LG Telephone +44 (0) 20 8960 6629 Fax +44 (0) 20 8962 0126 Email mark@azafady.org Internet
www.madagascar.co.uk
Skype Azafadyoffice

Become a fan of Azafady on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/AzafadyMadagascar

Follow us on Twitter
http://twitter.com/azafady

Mark and his team are working really hard to improve the quality of life for the peoples of Madagascar. To find out more about their volunteering options do hit:
http://www.changingworlds.co.uk/default.aspx?qlink=MadagascarOverview

Wednesday, 28 October 2009

Adam wants to encourage you to come to Queenstown in New Zealand

Adam, who went out to Queenstown in New Zealand in September of this year writes to say he is having the time of his life. He writes:
Hello David Again!
Just another update for you!!Sorry its been a while but using the internet is the last thing i want to do here! haha!

I'm still loving it here, its such a cool place and i feel very at home! Living with Debbie is still going well too, it has its bad points sharing room ect but i expected this when i came so I'm not letting it get in my way of enjoying NZ!

Works going really well too! Its Work for Skyline Gondola which you know of course, in their Photographic Department, its a new department for skyline as they always contracted a company in to take the photos and sell them, before aug this year so its all very much still work in progress, but its interesting to be in a development of a new department!

Basicly my job role is Being a photographer, developer,sales person and customer service rep roled into on big job!We basic are the first person the customers meet as they board the gondola, we make a bit of chitchat anwser questions and then offer to take their photo, sounds easy but we have to do this before the gondola doors close ad whilst the gondola is still moving!

We rotate as well into developing photos then selling the photos as guest leave again!I really enjoy it as i love talking to people and you know i love the tourist industry so fits me perfect!!!

I do appricate the hard work changing worlds does and was sad to hear some of the other boys had reservastions! I'm still glad i came with changing worlds as it gave me the confidence i needed to come here!

Just obvously the job situation cocerned us all! But we are all sorted now and life goes on!I do have photos on my facebook profile if u can access it via the changing worlds group? The car is also still going great and a great way of saving money compared to busses!If anyoe looking at coming to NZ has any questions send them my way!

I'm happy to helpp too!Thanks david!
adam dobinson

Adam would be delighted to tell you more. Contact him via his e-mail at:
adam.dobinson@hotmail.co.uk. Do check out his Facebook entries too!

Monday, 16 March 2009

Take a healthy break

In a recent article listing the top 10 healthy holiday Australia at 81.2 years came out 6th!
"Known as a nation of sports fanatics, Australians’ enthusiasm for health and fitness ensures them a place in the top ten. The climate certainly helps visitors to enjoy the great outdoors too, with surfing, scuba diving and sun tanning popular pastimes."

Read the whole article, click here






We know from over a decade of sending Gappies to work on farms in the outback, zoo's in Brisbane and to help with outdoor education teaching at schools in Melbourne that Australia is a great place to live, even if only for a few months.

Don't just take our word for it, join our Facebook group and ask ex-volunteers about their experiences.



Tuesday, 10 March 2009

Join the conversation!

As of 11:39 am on the 10th March we had 236 followers on Twitter!

We are delighted by the interest being shown in Changing Worlds and in what we have to say. You can see a feed of our updates on Twitter on the right hand side of our blog page, or follow the link above to view our profile.

This along with 730 fans on our Facebook page puts us very close to having 1000 followers across social networks. If you could tell your friends about us, or mention us on your pages then that would really help get us up to 1000 global followers which would be amazing.

We are planning to start a monthly newsletter that will provide updates about our volunteers all round the world and will feature reports from our reps in the countries we have placements.

Being a small, family run company we are delighted to be in conversation with a global audience and reassured that the current economic climate is not all doom and gloom.

So thank you all for your support and friendship!

Kindest regards,

David