 This Christmas give someone a Children on the Edge inspired gift and help bring hope, life, colour and fun to forgotten children around the world.
* Thanks to the generosity of Montezuma’s they have donated Chocolate bars to Children on the Edge, so that all your donation goes to the work of Children on the Edge.
Watch this space to see the development of these plans and click the buttons below to get involved.
 For the last 18 months, since the success of our pilot education loans in Masese II, the Child Protection Teams (CPTs) we support in Uganda have been expanding the scheme in Loco, Masese I and Masese III.
Education loans are small business loans given via the CPTs to the most vulnerable households, enabling them to create a source of income which covers the costs of providing for their children and sending them to school. Children on the Edge education project selected as part of the 2019 HundrED Global Collection4/11/2018
 Through 150 classrooms, we provide education for 7,500 Rohingya refugee children in the Kutupalong camp, Bangladesh. This project has been announced by global education nonprofit HundrED, as ‘one of 100 most inspiring K12 innovations across the world’. HundrED aims to share best practice ideas and K12 innovations across borders, to help improve the future of education globally. To achieve this, a team of researchers investigated innovations from around the world to determine 100 projects that are already changing the face of education. Over 1,000 innovations were identified through research, events and recommendations and then a shortlist were evaluated by HundrED’s academy, made up of educational experts, educators and students from 28 countries. Projects were assessed on their innovativeness, impact and scalability. HundrED’s researchers focused on finding out whether innovations produced tangible results, whether they addressed a need in an new and meaningful way, and whether the idea could grow or be adapted to help others elsewhere in the world. Saku Tuominen, CEO of HundrED, said: “Spreading innovations such as Children on the Edge’s community-led refugee education model across borders can be a gamechanger for education, worldwide. We will continue to encourage as many stakeholders as possible including schools, educators, administrators, students and organisations to get involved so that we can work towards a positive future.” To share the K12 innovations, HundrED has created an online platform so that educators around the world can trial and review selected innovations using the resources for free. To explore the global innovations, please visit: www.hundred.org. Find out more about the our work with Rohingya refugee children, and read about the the 100 2019 selected innovations at http://hundred.org/hundrED2019   Currently, the most popular type of venture from our loan scheme are vegetable businesses, with over a quarter of all loan participants starting up stalls. One of these business owners is Irene, who is 60 years old and a grandmother responsible for three orphaned children. She used to live alone after her two children grew up and left to start their own families. She mainly survived on the support her son Godfrey provided, though once in a while she did casual work like laundry or helping in people’s fields to earn some extra income. Through this time, she always had an idea of starting up a vegetable business, but had limited funds which weren’t sufficient enough even for her basic needs. Tragically, her son Godfrey died, and Irene took on his children, as their mother had divorced Godfrey and disappeared a few years before. At this time, Irene realised that she had not only had the responsibility of taking care of these children, but with her son gone, she was the only earner. Despite her interest in starting up a vegetable business, she was still limited by a lack of capital. During this crisis she began to talk with Joyce, who had started her own business through the Children on the Edge education loan programme. She introduced Irene to the local Child Protection Team, who in turn introduced her to the loans officer. After an assessment, Irene was was given a loan of 200,000 Ugandan shillings, which she used to start up the long wished for vegetable stall beside her house. Edwin Wanabe, Programme Director for Children on the Edge Africa said “Irene’s business is doing well. It is from this that she is able to provide for her grandchildren’s basic needs and education. She is very grateful for the great support given to her. She often expresses her joy by telling our loan’s officer how she has hope that, through the business, her grandchildren have a provider, who has stepped into their father’s shoes since he’s gone”.  Lydia is a member of Masese I Child Protection Team (CPT), who had a thriving banana (Matooke) business, which her family relied on. Sadly her situation took a turn for the worse, when her husband was involved in a serious accident which left him bedridden, leaving Lydia as the only earner. For a time all her profits had to go towards his medical treatment, which suffocated the business and caused Lydia to begin to lose hope. Through talks with her fellow CPT members, our social worker and the loans officer, she was encouraged to apply for a loan to invest into her collapsing trade. The loan soon reawakened her profits, enabling her to not only pay her husband’s treatment costs, but also take care of the household needs and pay school fees for her children. Lydia said “I am extremely happy that amidst the challenges that befall me, I still picked up courage and invested the loan money in my struggling Matooke business, which was almost collapsing. This enabled me grow my business from buying two bunches to four, and I am really grateful because this has uplifted my household income”. |
RECEIVE OUR EMAILSBlog Categories
All
Archives
August 2024
|
RSS Feed
|
JOIN US ON SOCIAL MEDIA
|
Annual Report | Contact Us | Jobs | Media Centre | Resources | Shop
Accessibility & Policies: Accessibility | Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Policy | Complaints| Privacy Policy | Safeguarding
Accessibility & Policies: Accessibility | Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Policy | Complaints| Privacy Policy | Safeguarding
|
Registered charity no. 1101441
|
Children on the Edge, 5 The Victoria, 25 St Pancras, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 7LT, UK | 01243 538530 | [email protected]