Splashing, graduations, weddings and marathons...plus we are looking for volunteers!

There are lots of great things to update you with from S.A.L.V.E. at the moment...

Uganda

First of all we want to say huge congratulations to Juliet, who is on our team of staff, and who recently had her graduation party from University!

We also want to welcome Lailite to our staff team as a home assistant!

The children have been enjoying a wonderful time on their holidays between first and second term of school. Lots of fun and games were had as well as a chance for the children to go and visit some of their relatives where possible.

We had especially good news for Hassan who has managed to be re-united with his mother who he lost touch with aged four when his parents divorced. It was wonderful for them to find each other again - and he got to meet his new half-brothers and sisters too!



UK

It's been a busy time for us in the UK too. We've had lots of incredible people taking on the Nile in the UK to make a Splash for S.A.L.V.E. and help to raise money for us, from Kate in Brussels, to Fiona in Chesterfield to the Manchester crew who took up the challenge yesterday (is that really a Nile crocodile in the UK?!). A huge thank you to you all for your efforts and good luck to all of those yet to swim!


Another huge congrats has to go to the amazing Kathryn Ellis who got round the London Marathon in style for S.A.L.V.E. in an impressive time of 4 hours 36 minutes - from all of us on the S.A.L.V.E. team, well done!


Another big thank you has to go to Becca and Jeremie who have been long term supporters of S.A.L.V.E. - so much so that they didn't forget us on their special day and did an incredible collection for us at their wedding! Thank you so much!!


Also a big congrats to everyone who took part in BUMMIT hitchhike from Sheffield to Poland with Sheffield rag. You all did so well and we are so proud to be one of the charities you have chosen to support this year!


Volunteer

Finally, just to let you know that we are currently looking for two amazing interns to go out to Uganda and help us in our work from September to February - check out the details on how to apply here.

If that's a bit too far to go - there is something you can do in the comfort of your own home to make a huge difference! We have entered the Co-operative's My Revolution Competition and are currently at 2nd place in our category (first place wins £5000 ... 2nd place wins nothing) and we have 20 days to get to number one! Please help us by voting and by asking your friends and family to vote too - £5000 would make a huge difference to the work we can do in Uganda this year!

Thanks again for your support,
Lots of love from the S.A.L.V.E. Team

School visitation time, and all sorts of updates and news from S.A.L.V.E.

Ugandan update:

This week was time for school visitation time for a lot of our children. This is a chance for our children to show us their schools, for us to get an update from teachers on the children's progress and for the S.A.L.V.E. family to enjoy some good food together :)


Good news is that we are getting a lot of positive reports on our children's progress - and we now have several prefects and class monitors amongst our ranks!

The Salve team has also been working hard to try to find a good (not too expensive) space to rent for our women's group in Mafubira - and the good news is we think we have somewhere now. This will mean a better, cleaner environment for the womens lessons!



We have also been doing a lot of work in our local town of Bugembe and are working alongside the town council there to try to stop the growing number of fulltime childrenliving on the street
in the area.

We have also taken in a lovely new girl called Faith (aged 11) who needed to escape from some members of her family wanting to harm her.


UK update:

Things remain busy as ever in the UK as we try our best to raise awareness about our work in Uganda and continue our big fundraising drive towards getting land and a home of our very own.

We are looking for sponsors for two of our wonderful children - Junior Masolo and Faith. Please do get in contact if you might be interested (£35 a month) = info@salveinternational.org


We've been out talking to the wonderful hitchhikers from Sheffield Rag who will be going all the way to Poland this Easter with us as one of the charities they are supporting (and have already raised money for us from their baby hitchhike last year!). Thank you so much for all you are doing for us!

We are busy preparing for our Spalsh for S.A.L.V.E. in April (a chance to swim part of the Nile here in the UK!) - Events are cropping up in Manchester, London, Sheffield, in some schools and even Brussels! Find out more about swimming or even going one spalsh further and coordinating your local swim!


And we are supporting the wonderful Kathryn Ellis in her London marathon run for S.A.L.V.E. on 17th April!

Do get in touch if you have any other ideas on where we could go to speak about our work or some good fundraising ideas? info@salveinternational.org

And the good news is our online shop will be up and running very soon .... A great idea for mothers day this year!

Want to intern with S.A.L.V.E. in Uganda?

So it's that time of year again where we are looking for two amazing passionate people to go and intern with S.A.L.V.E. out in Uganda. And the deadline is approaching fast (this Wednesday!).

This is an exciting post for someone hoping to get more involved in the charity sector, which will provide excellent hands-on experience. The successful candidates will undertake a four month placement, and will be involved in all aspects of the charity's work on the ground. Interns will work closely with the charity's Ugandan staff in their work with children on the street through our street clinics, as well as on site at the charity's foster home. Interns will also be expected to help in the charity's community education program to help to address the causes of why children take to the streets in the first place, i.e. through research, syllabus design and facilitation. There will also be opportunities to assist our link schools, particularly assisting the teachers with (but not limited to) music, art, sport, debating and homework clubs.

As a relatively new charity, S.A.L.V.E. International offers the chance for very real experience, and the opportunity for interns to bring their own ideas to the table. We are looking for enthusiastic, dedicated applicants with a can-do attitude who are not afraid to get stuck in with any sort of work. There will be many duties within the local community, and we expect the successful interns to act as ambassadors for the charity, whilst also being happy to carry out a certain amount of administrative work behind the scenes.

This position is unpaid and the interns will be expected to finance their transport and living costs whilst in Uganda. Please download the full job spec from charity job (http://www.charityjob.co.uk/seekers/jobdetails.aspx?jobid=176779) and to have any questions answered please email info@salveinternational.org.

Please apply in writing, sending your C.V. and a covering letter explaining why you are suitable for this role to info@salveinternational.org by 12 noon on Wednesday 7^th July. All applicants must be available for interview on Sunday 18^th July and a training day on Saturday 7^th August. The successful candidates will depart for Uganda in early September 2010 and stay until the end of late December.

Many of our past interns have gone on to get their ideal job in the charity sector on the back of this experience. In fact one of our first interns Caitlin O'Neill (who now works in the fundraising department of a major charity in London) has even gone on to become a charity trustee and now heads our fundraising work in the UK.

And this is what Esther Dobson (another of our previous interns) has to say about her experience:

'My time in Uganda was certainly one of the most rewarding and fulfilling of my life as well as being a fantastic opportunity to build the skills and experiences needed to go on to do so much more. From the very beginning my intern partner Caitlin and I were welcomed into SALVE family and by the end of our 4 months we were good friends with a lot of the “full timers” living and sleeping on the streets. It was such a privilege to be part of the process helping some of the children through the transition from the streets to SALVE home and seeing their transformation as they became clean, educated, loved and accepted. Other projects I got involved with like creating an income generating project for poor mothers, research and educating local authorities about street children have been brilliant experience for my masters in social policy and will be invaluable in getting a job in project development in the international development sector. I am also very grateful for SALVE teaching me so much I needed to know to set up my own children’s home in Nepal, now a loving family to nine orphaned, abandoned and street children. Thank you SALVE!'

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 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!

Malaria and Marathons

This is going to be a celebratory blog this week - looking at overcoming malaria and marathons...

Malaria

You may be wondering why this blog is coming out slightly later than normal? It's because in the last week we've all been anxiously waiting to hear more news of Moreen who was rushed to hospital with falciparum malaria last weekend ... and thankful we can now report she's at home and on the road to recovery. Although people in Uganda often get malaria - falciparum malaria is the worst kind (malaria plus plus plus in the words of Mike our regional director).


We give all of our children mosquito nets and talk with them about the importance of using them - but obviously they are not under them the whole time and unfortunately there is no vacination that we can give them to help to protect them from this killer disease yet.

One of our trustees Nicola Sansom was also struck down by this severe type of malaria earlier this year and this is what she has to say about it. "I can honestly say that it was one of the worst times of my life - your head aches constantly as light burns your eyes, your ears ring and even small noises cut through you like glass. You constantly want to vomit so taking your medication is a battle just to keep it down. The fever makes you shake with cold while you're burning up and in your semi lucid state you just can't understand why people are being so cruel as to take your blankets away. And if you are lucky enough to survive you then have a long battle to rebuild your strength, as you are so pysically weakened and exhausted all the time - I still needed a month off work after coming out of hospital just to get my strength back enough to be able to walk from the bus to the office."

"I was lucky because I didn't get symptoms until I got back to the UK so I was extremely well taken care of by the NHS in a specialist tropical ward - I got my own room and round the clock care ... The vast majority of people who get this in Uganda can't afford that kind of treatment. They are lucky if they can afford to go to the local clinic for a drip/ medication - but after that most people would have to go home to be taken care of by their family and hope for the best..."

So from this I hope you can understand why we are so happy that Moreen is on the path to recovery now - it's not going to be easy for her, she's going to be behind at school and feel very tired for the next few weeks ... but she's over the worst of it now and will have all our support to be fighting fit again before too long!

UK News

We're also very pleased to say that despite all the baking sunshine John Pegington managed to slog his way around the Edinburgh marathon to help to raise money for Salve last weekend. A huge thank you and congrats to him - it helps to make all the work we do out in Uganda possible and is currently adding to our fund to buy our own land!


And another massive thank you must go to the Melbourne Rotary club in Derbyshire who invited us to come and speak with them about our work this last week and kindly gave us a donation towards our land fund too!

Do get in touch if you are interested in having someone from S.A.L.V.E. come and speak about our work at your school/group/workplace etc. We are very keen to get the word out there about the work that we are doing to support the street children in Uganda! Contact: info@salveinternational.org

The Show Must Go On ...

Hmmm what's this? A blog being written from the UK team instead of from Uganda. As you may have noticed we have made a decision as a charity to have a little break from volunteers in Uganda - not permanent we promise! We just felt that a year on from starting the program was a good time to do some serious evaluation and bring the intern program back even better than before later in the year ... so watch this space if you're interested in applying.

Holiday fun

Mike, Assy and Stephen are currently enjoying the school holidays with all the S.A.L.V.E. children. It's great to have a chance to relax and play together. And also for the first time we're getting the children involved with our staff in making their lists of requirements for the new school term, which could be fun ... Will we just be asked for the normal book, pencils and uniform this term? Or will that essential pet elephant that we just haven't considered before get added on?

New Children

Our Ugandan team is also working very hard at the moment with some new boys who we hope will be ready to enter our sponsorship scheme soon. It takes time to build a trusting relationship - but as soon as they are ready we can't wait to welcome them into the S.A.L.V.E. family. If you think that you've got what it takes to become a sponsor - why not get in touch (info@salveinternational.org) and find out more?

UK Fun and Games

And as for us in the UK, we continue to work hard to raise awareness of our work out in Uganda and to raise the vital funds we need. April was an incredible month for us - with our fab London event and amazing army of runners (huge thanks to everyone who got involved!). We are excited to build on that energy as we head towards summer ...

In London we are recruiting for people to join our local fundraising team (caitlin@salveinternational.org) - a couple of hours a week to help us raise that much needed money ... I hear rumours of a ceiliegh coming up so get your dancing shoes ready!

In Manchester John Pegington is getting ready to take on the Edinburgh marathon for us - good luck with your final training!

Meanwhile if you like swimming - do keep the first weekend of September free ... more info coming soon!