Children on the Edge
  • DONATE
    • The Big Give 2022
  • COUNTRIES
    • Country Overview
    • BANGLADESH >
      • Kutupalong
      • Cox's Bazar & Doharazi
    • INDIA
    • LEBANON
    • MYANMAR
    • UGANDA >
      • Jinja
      • Kyaka II
    • UKRAINE
  • ABOUT US
    • WHO WE ARE
    • Contact Us
    • 2022 Highlights
    • Annual Report
    • Awards
    • Meet the team
    • Our Story
    • Our Values
    • Our Partners
  • OUR WORK
    • OUR WORK Overview
    • Working on 'the Edge'
    • Safe Spaces
    • Child Rights
    • Refugee Education
    • Early Childhood Development
    • Cluster Learning In Uganda
    • Supporting Slum Communities
    • Tackling Caste Discrimination
    • Ending Child Sacrifice
  • GET INVOLVED
    • Get Our Email Updates
    • Autumn Raffle
    • Fundraise For Us
    • Challenge Events >
      • Virtual Challenge
      • Run The London Marathon
    • Schools
    • Trusts & Foundations
    • Corporate Partnerships
    • The Body Shop at Home
    • Volunteer
    • Shop
  • LATEST STORIES
Picture

LATEST STORIES

Click to donate

All in a day’s work - The Body Shop At Home smash fundraising totals for Children on the Edge

20/9/2018

 
Picture
BODY SHOP AT HOME CONSULTANT? - GET INVOLVED
At this year’s Christmas conference, The Body Shop at Home consultants beat their biggest fundraising total yet, raising an incredible £31,420 in just one day.

Ben, Eloise and our amazing volunteers Harry-Joe, Jane, Kate and her children Beth and Ben all travelled to Telford for the Christmas Conference. As well as raffle tickets and t-shirts, they were armed with over 2,500 goody bags. Products for these were generously donated by The Body Shop, and packed with the help of a brilliant group of volunteers who gave two days of their time to put them all together.

Our Executive Director, Ben shared news from Uganda, describing how, like The Body Shop, all Children on the Edge projects work to ensure people can become the best version of themselves. He gave an example from Uganda, telling a recent story about how a Child Protection Team ensured the rescue of an abducted baby.

The Body Shop volunteers Melany, Bev, Sam and Jade (pictured above) also spoke about their June visit to Uganda where they saw the Child Protection Teams, Early Education Centre and micro-loans in action. Jade Fish, Head of Trading and Communications said “What I will take away from my trip is the future every community can look forward to with over 8,000 strong of Anita’s Army behind them”.

81 consultants also signed up to give a monthly donation, ensuring the stability of this work going forward. Our Fundraising Manager Eloise said “Regular donations to Children on the Edge provide a steady, reliable income that enables us to plan ahead, budget effectively and undertake more programmes to support vulnerable children around the world. We’re really grateful to have an amazing group of consultants from The Body Shop At Home on that journey with us”.

The Body Shop and Children on the Edge have worked together since Anita Roddick founded the charity in 1990. Driven by her passion for sustainable and ethical products, Dame Anita hoped to provide a similar approach to charity work.
Picture
Ben Wilkes announces the total raised in a day.
Picture
Anita and a team of 12 volunteers packed over 2,500 bags, brimming with treats from The Body Shop.
Thank you to all those who are supporting us to continue this work. If you are a consultant from The Body Shop at Home and you'd like to find out how to get more involved, just email tbsah@childrenontheedge.org, or if you’d like to sign up as TBSAH monthly donor* click here. 

*For other COTE supporters wanting to donate monthly, click the button below.
BECOME A DONOR
RECEIVE OUR NEWSLETTER

Abducted two-month-old baby returned thanks to Child Protection Team

8/9/2018

 
Picture
BECOME A DONOR
When a young 17-year-old mother in Uganda had a visitor to her Masese III home, she was having a normal morning caring for her new baby. Agnes’ boy was just a month old and she was still getting used to looking after him.

The lady arrived in her doorway, acting like an old friend. Neighbours said that she had been looking for a girl that had just had a baby, so they assumed it must be Agnes. The woman said she wanted to change some money and didn’t know where, so she asked Agnes to go and change it for her, promising that she would give some of the money as a gift for the baby.

Agnes left the baby in the house and went to change the money. Whilst she was gone, the neighbours observed the woman looking around her and intently peering through the curtains of the house, but did not question it, assuming she was a friend.

When Agnes returned, the woman then said she had a job offer for her, so Agnes quickly fed and bathed the baby and they set off together. On the way, the woman said that she had left her phone in Agnes’ room, so Agnes asked her to hold the child for her and ran back. When she got back to the room there was no phone and when she returned to where she had left the woman, she had disappeared with the baby.

Agnes and her partner Najid were frantic, and went to find Godfrey, the chairperson of their local Child Protection Team (CPT). He went immediately to the police and to the local radio station to appeal for help, but the search yielded nothing.
​

A week went by for the parents, while members of the CPT kept in touch with the police. One morning word came that a baby had appeared in a neighbouring community under suspicious circumstances. The police mounted a search and rescued Agnes and Najid’s son from the stranger. Just when they thought their ordeal was over however, the police requested a DNA test before they would let them take their son home, and insisted that they pay 245,000 Ugandan shillings for the privilege.
Picture
There was no way the young couple could afford this. Weeks started to go by where they were separated from their son (he had been cared for in an orphanage since his rescue) and they could do nothing. The CPT stepped in again and accompanied them to negotiate with the police. For 24 hours the CPT members negotiated with the police, showing official letters and speaking to different departments. At the end of this time, the baby was finally returned to his parents.

It was later revealed that the woman who took the baby had lied to her partner who had been deployed in Somalia with the Uganda People’s Defence Force. She had told him she was pregnant so he would send her money, then when he came back a year later, expecting to see a child of around two months, she decided to try and steal a baby.

​Masese III community is largely made up of people from the Karamajong community, who come from the north of the country where the soldier was from. The woman had specifically targeted this area to find a baby that would look convincing.

On the day Agnes was reunited with her son she said  "I am very happy that I have finally found my son. The lady who stole him thought since am a young girl I would be easily fooled but I am very grateful to the CPT, because if it wasn't for them, trust me, we wouldn't have got this far in rescuing him."

The Child Protection Teams we support in the slum communities around Jinja describe themselves as ‘the eyes, ears and mouths of the children they work to protect’. This story is a great example of how they work to bring children to safety and build a bridge between the community and local services.
​

RECEIVE OUR NEWSLETTER
MAKE A DONATION

The Edge for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

7/9/2018

 
Picture
Background

The Rohingya are a Muslim minority group in Rakhine State, on the western coast of Myanmar. Long described as the world’s ‘most persecuted minority, the UN Advisory Commission now state that the Rohingya people ‘constitute the single biggest stateless community in the world’.

The Rohingya face continual anti- muslim persecution from the government of Myanmar who claim they are not a genuine ethnic group but are Bengali immigrants, whose presence is a legacy of colonial times. Since the 1940s, ongoing persecution, violent military campaigns and gross human rights abuses have caused the exile of over one million Rohingya people.

Since the government passed the 1982 Citizenship Act, the Rohingya people have been denied access to citizenship and subjected to grave atrocities at the hands of the authorities and local population in Myanmar. Many groups have described the treatment of the Rohingya as genocidal, yet the international community have largely ignored their plight for many years.

To escape this treatment over the decades, Rohingya refugees have made perilous journeys at sea or fled across borders, often to countries that are already impoverished and over populated, including Bangladesh.​ Until mid 2017, according to government estimates, Bangladesh was already hosting around 500,000 displaced Rohingya.

With the UN camps at capacity by 2005, makeshift camps emerged, but conditions were poor and children had no opportunity for education. Children on the Edge worked in Kutupalong makeshift camp from 2011, providing low profile schools for 2,700 children.
Picture

2017 Refugee Crisis

In August 2017, a catastrophic rise of violence and calculated ethnic cleansing in Rakhine State, forced an additional 700,000 Rohingya people into Bangladesh. Refugees fled into into the makeshift refugee camps along the border; who were ill-equipped to host thousands of traumatised new arrivals. Hundreds of thousands ended up in the Kutupalong area, where we were working.

The attention this drew from the international stage and the obvious horror of what this huge influx of people have endured, prompted the Bangladeshi government to finally allow international NGOs to provide services to unregistered refugees.
Picture
Life for children in Kutupalong

Children arriving in the camps were traumatised, cut off from services, and vulnerable to exploitation and disease. After generations of being marginalised, they have no expectation of the rights they deserve, no education for the future and are ill equipped to survive the daily challenges of their environment.

The Strategic Executive Group Joint Response Plan (JRP) evidenced the following needs:

  • 625,000 children lack access to learning opportunities in the camps and host communities, with overwhelming need for equipped classrooms and skilled teachers. In Cox’s Bazar primary schools, completion rate is 54%, compared to a country rate of 80%.

  • Children face serious protection risks like psychosocial distress, abuse, child marriage, child labour and trafficking.

  • Over 52% of refugee children are girls, there is a high school drop-out rate for host community girls and a lack of trained female teachers.

  • Schools have unharnessed potential for health monitoring and screening; but teachers lack training.

There is currently an estimated 902,000 Rohingya refugees living in densely populated camps along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border and an additional 7,000 in the host communities. With 66,000 refugees packed into a square kilometre, the camp faces numerous challenges, but none larger than the lack of space.
​

Human Rights Watch state that on average, there is just 10.7 square metres of usable space per person compared to the recommended international standard of 45 square metres per person. Carving out adequate room for a school in this environment is tremendous challenge. Click below to read how we have met this challenge and how are schools are beginning to meet the needs of 7,500 children. 

READ ABOUT OUR SCHOOLS IN KUTUPALONG
consider making a donation
    Picture

    RECEIVE OUR EMAILS

    Blog Categories

    All
    Ambassadors
    Bangladesh
    Burma/Myanmar
    Chichester
    Child Participation
    Child Protection Team
    Child Rights
    Child Sacrifice
    Coronavirus
    Dalit
    Digital Education
    Early Childhood Development
    Education Loans
    Fundraising
    General
    #GetToKnowUs
    History
    Hope
    Humanitarian Relief
    India
    Kachin
    Kyaka II Uganda
    Lebanon
    Postcode Lottery
    Protective Environments
    Refugees
    Rohingya
    Schools
    Storytellers
    The Body Shop At Home
    #ThrowbackThursday
    Uganda
    UK
    Ukraine
    Volunteer
    Women's Rights

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011



    RSS Feed

JOIN US ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Click to donate

Get Involved

Corporate Partnerships
​
​Email updates
Fundraise 
Give Monthly
Grant Giving Organisations
​The Body Shop At Home
Volunteer

aBOUT US

Who We Are
​​​How  We Spend Your Money
Latest Stories
​Our Story
​​Our Work
Accessibility  | Annual Report  | Contact Us | Jobs | Media Centre | ​Privacy Policy | Resources | ​Safeguarding | Shop | ​Strategic Partners 
For raffle ticket holders | Take Part | Rules and Prizes | Complaints | Responsible Gambling ​
Logo which says 'Registered with Fundraising Regulator'

Registered charity no. 1101441
REGISTERED COMPANY No. 4996130 

​Children on the Edge, 5 The Victoria, 25 St Pancras, Chichester,  West Sussex, PO19 7LT, UK | 01243 538530 | communications@childrenontheedge.org 
  • DONATE
    • The Big Give 2022
  • COUNTRIES
    • Country Overview
    • BANGLADESH >
      • Kutupalong
      • Cox's Bazar & Doharazi
    • INDIA
    • LEBANON
    • MYANMAR
    • UGANDA >
      • Jinja
      • Kyaka II
    • UKRAINE
  • ABOUT US
    • WHO WE ARE
    • Contact Us
    • 2022 Highlights
    • Annual Report
    • Awards
    • Meet the team
    • Our Story
    • Our Values
    • Our Partners
  • OUR WORK
    • OUR WORK Overview
    • Working on 'the Edge'
    • Safe Spaces
    • Child Rights
    • Refugee Education
    • Early Childhood Development
    • Cluster Learning In Uganda
    • Supporting Slum Communities
    • Tackling Caste Discrimination
    • Ending Child Sacrifice
  • GET INVOLVED
    • Get Our Email Updates
    • Autumn Raffle
    • Fundraise For Us
    • Challenge Events >
      • Virtual Challenge
      • Run The London Marathon
    • Schools
    • Trusts & Foundations
    • Corporate Partnerships
    • The Body Shop at Home
    • Volunteer
    • Shop
  • LATEST STORIES