How to Help?

Nights on the streets in Jinja are a world away from the life we know here in the UK. When Nicola and Helen were first setting up S.A.L.V.E. back in 2008, there is one night that sticks out in their mind more than any other.

After a day spent meeting children on the street, they returned to their lodgings as usual. But whilst their day that had been filled with sunshine and plenty of hope for the future, there followed one of the wildest nights in living memory. A storm of huge proportions hit Jinja. The winds raged, lightening flashed and the thunder deafened. And as the shutters were battered against their bedroom windows, all Nicola and Helen could think of was the children they had left on the streets as they came home that evening.

This is one of the most difficult things about S.A.L.V.E.’s work; that however many children we help along they way, there are always more who we haven’t been able to offer assistance to, often due to circumstances beyond our control. And so, when we are unable to bring a child into our house and onto the S.A.L.V.E. sponsorship scheme, we look for other ways in which we can help them.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that one way we do this is through our street clinics where we are able to offer support and counselling to those kids who are still living on the streets of Jinja. But if the circumstances allow it, another crucial aspect of our work is to reunite children with the families thy have left behind. Children take to the streets for a wide variety of reasons, and whilst it is logical to think that they left home because their families no longer want to look after them, this is often a long way from the truth. In fact, many children end up on the streets because they have been searching for family, but don’t know where to start and soon find they have nowhere to go. So whenever we can, we try to bring a child back together with their family. Sometimes this takes a good bit of detective work on our part, whilst at other times this can be very straightforward, as a child will often know where to find their relations but simply doesn’t have the means of getting to them.

This week, S.A.L.V.E.’s Ugandan team were able to help a child in just this way and are currently in the process of restoring a boy called Junior to his family. Junior has been living on the streets for three years now, and desperately wants to be back at home with his elder brother who we are currently searching for. Although this may take a bit of time, we are getting there slowly but surely, having recently traced his grandmother, who hasn’t seen him since he left home. With many other family members to care for, Junior’s grandmother is unable to take him in, but she was overjoyed to see him, and we hope that through her we will soon be able to get Junior back to where he belongs. We'll be sure to keep you posted on any developments in our search for Junior's family, so do come back to see how we get on.

A Spotlight on S.A.L.V.E. Uganda

Last week’s blog saw a fantastic insight into the fundraising that we do, and the generous people who give up their time to do this for us. So this week, let’s turn the spotlight on our work in Uganda, to see some of the places that your donations are going.

Supporting Street Clinics!

Central to our work as a charity are our weekly street clinics. As we can only care for a small number of children in our home, our street clinics provide an opportunity for us to counsel and support those children still living on the street, and to get to know them and their backgrounds. Our street clinics offer a chance for these vulnerable children to see some familiar faces and to rebuild their trust in the adults around them.

At this week’s street clinic, our Ugandan team also saw a familiar face – Kefa, a child who we used to work with on the streets, but haven’t seen for a long while. Recognising Mike and the team, he came closer and gave a shy smile. Gradually he began to talk, and quickly showed how keen he is to return to school and bring an end to his life on the streets. We hope that we will be able to help him to achieve his dream, so watch this space to see what happens over the coming weeks.

Community Education

If you think back through our many blogs, you’ll remember that our first set of interns, Caitlin and Esther, ran a small jewellery-making project for local school children and their mothers. This was a great success, and we soon hope to turn this trial project into a full-time reality as part of our community education programme.

As a charity, we have always felt that community education is hugely important to the work that we do as we try to look past the problem and to the cause. We hope that by working in local communities, educating locals and providing them with a revenue stream, we will be able to have some impact – however big or small – on the poverty which drives children to the streets in the first place.

And finally…

We are now advertising for our next set of interns to join us out in Uganda! Our internship runs from September to December, and offers the successful candidates the chance to really become a part of our charity and to have a say in the crucial work that we carry out. We are looking for people who are enthusiastic, proactive and have bags of energy…but above all, they must be PASSIONATE about what we do! If you want to apply, or think you know someone who would be perfect for the role, then let us know at info@salveinternational.org.

To download the full job spec, please visit http://www.charityjob.co.uk/seekers/jobdetails.aspx?jobid=176779 and apply with your CV and covering letter by 12 noon on Wednesday 7th July. You’d better get your skates on!

A focus on the Fundraising

In honour of the fact that we are launching our incredible London Fundraising team very soon and are currently recruiting for dedicated volunteers we thought that we'd do a special blog for you all about fundraising.

Now anyone who has been following our work this year must have noticed our rather creative efforts to raise money are ever increasing: we decided as an organisation to start fundraising to buy our own land during our annual general meeting in Uganda earlier this year and so far the support we've had has been tremendous and we've raised over £5000!

This has been raised through a variety of ways: people being sponsored to take on challenges, fundraising events and through people generously donating (either a one off or a regular sum no matter how big or small does make a huge difference to us!).

Two of our most recent fundraising champions Becca and Lucy Fawcett wrote this about their recent running triumph:

Running the BIG half for SALVE

Why SALVE?

After seeing the amazing difference that the S.A.L.V.E. team had already made to street children's lives in Uganda, Luc and Becca wanted to do their bit in support of the great project. Through the sponsorship of Maureen, the Fawcett family has had a glimpse into the day-to-day struggles of the street children in Jinja and the amazing work S.A.L.V.E. does.

S.A.L.V.E's work is particularly pertinent to the girls as the charity was set up and is run by people their own age. It also offers a great opportunity to see 100% of donations go straight where they are desperately needed. As the charity is still small, they can see that every penny raised makes a real difference.

Why the Sheffield half marathon?

As neither sister had ever really run beyond the obligatory (and life-threatening) 1,500 metres at school they decided the Sheffield half marathon would be sufficiently taxing for 2010. For Becca it was a welcome break from the City and for Luc a reminder of what great sights Sheffield has to offer…
The sisters made the decision to run in February, giving themselves about 8 weeks to prepare. At first a grueling 20 minute jog around the block seemed epic, so the prospect of a 13 mile run was inconceivable. The Just Giving page was launched and a target of £500 was set – gradually the sponsorship started to roll in and the project built up momentum.

As the weeks went by a bit of cycling and a few sit-ups were thrown in to the ‘training regimes’ for good measure…in fact Becca and Luc were surprised at how fast they went from loathing to loving the runs. Knowing they had a target to achieve and children to help gave them the extra push to get up on those rainy Sundays to pound the streets of London and Sheffield. The sponsorship monies grew and grew and before long the target was met and even doubled. Alison and Simon Fawcett hosted a “Chili Evening” which was a great (and delicious) success.

Crunch time. The sisters were both feeling nervous as they stood on the track at Don Valley stadium amongst the crowd of very professional looking athletes. The running conditions were looking good: no rain, not too sunny nor too windy - perfect! Even better, another crew of cheery S.A.L.V.E. fundraisers were quickly spotted thanks to the bright yellow T-shirts. The “yellows” shared stories and momentary laughter. However panic quickly followed – if we don’t make it, we won’t have earnt the sponsorship…what then - what about the Jinja kids???

The sisters ran together, both feeling strong for those first six miles; running from Don Valley through the revamped city centre and along the popular Ecclesall Road…mile 11 was the point when they started to get emotional…nearly there! The last lap around the stadium was tough, with people collapsing in the final mile...

The sisters went for “sprint finishes”, Becca finishing in 2hrs 07mins and Luc in 2hrs17mins.

The next day was sore, but absolutely worth it.

THANK YOU S.A.L.V.E. International for motivating us to have such an emotional and exciting experience and giving us such an amazing target.

With generous sponsorship from the DLA Piper Charitable Trust, colleagues, friends and family across the UK, Becca and Lucy raised over £1,500 for S.A.L.V.E.

Do you want to get more involved?

We are always happy to help and support anyone who is interested in fundraising for S.A.L.V.E. and have a fundraising pack full of good ideas to get you on your way: please email caitlin@salveinternational.org for more info!