Hidden away in Whitmore Reans the Wildside Activity Centre is a green oasis helping people of all ages and abilities to reconnect with nature by offering a range of adventurous and environmental activities which help to promote wellbeing and an appreciation of the natural world.
The Centre is especially proud of their work with people who have disabilities or special needs and they are always looking for further opportunities for enjoyment of the outdoors and adventurous activities, particularly seeking to reach groups suffering deprivation and social exclusion in the local neighbourhood and the wider community of Wolverhampton.
The Club and its members have been supporters of the Centre’s work for many years and we’re glad to have been able to continue that support by making a further donation to help the Centre with its work.
The donation will help support Wildside’s work with young people giving them opportunities to learn new skills, to build confidence and to develop a love of nature.
The Christmas Challenge is the UK’s biggest match-funded campaign and over seven days starting on the 28th November supporters of participating charities have the opportunity to double their donations – doubling the value of our pledge to £2,000.
The Brothers of the Good Shepherd have been supporting the most disadvantaged people in Wolverhampton for over 50 years in their mission to end homelessness, support recovery, and create pathways out of poverty.
The charity provides a range of services to people in need, including food and clothing banks, homelessness prevention services, and support for people with mental health problems. The donation from the Rotary Club of Tettenhall will help Good Shepherd to continue providing these vital services to our community.
Earlier this year we heard from some of The Royal School students who have been supporting the work of Project Gambia, a UK based charity which has been working in The Gambia since 2007 to build and repair schools, to provide scholarships and equipment to help children from poor families attend school and to provide teachers with training and support.
Fundraising by the students as part of the school’s Lenten appeal has enabled the charity to complete building work on new premises for Omega Nursery School, a small school which is giving 194 poorer children in the Serrekunda area of The Gambia an opportunity to attend school.
The Royal students visited Omega School earlier this year to see for themselves the progress that had been made and during the visit helped to decorate classrooms and distributed equipment to the pupils as well as having the opportunity to hear how important their school was to them.
We were all impressed by the commitment of the Royal School students and with the work of Project Gambia helping to provide Gambians with better opportunities in life. We’ve now made a donation of £1,000 to help the charity with their work and this has been match funded by a further donation of £1,000 from one of our Club members.
The Rotary Club of Tettenhall has donated £1,000 to the Birch Thompson Memorial Fund to help support the fund’s work in maintaining and developing Gelliwig, a residential centre in Porthmadog, North Wales which offers low cost residential accommodation for young people from Wolverhampton and the wider West Midlands.
Gelliwig has long been a popular destination for school groups, youth groups, and other organisations from Wolverhampton and its a great base for activities such as hiking, canoeing and rock climbing.
The Birch Thompson Memorial Fund was formed in 1981 in tribute to Colton Hill School teachers Graham Birch and John Thompson, who both died in 1980, and has helped thousands of young people to develop their skills and talents and to experience the outdoors. The importance of the Funds work was recognised with the award of the prestigious Queens Award for Voluntary Service in 2020.
The £1,000 donation from the Rotary Club of Tettenhall will help the Birch Thompson Memorial Fund to continue its work in supporting Gelliwig. The money will be used to refurbish an external paly area for the use of the young people who visit Gelliwig each year.
If you would like to find out more about the Birch Thompson Memorial Fund and its work at Gelliwig visit their website at www.gelliwig.org.uk
October is Rotary’s Economic & Community Development Month highlighting the work which Rotary members do to promote economic and community development and reduce poverty.
With over 648 million people living on less that the $2.15 a day poverty line – the critical threshold value below which an individual or household is determined to be poor – there’s a lot of work still to be done.
The work of Rotary begins in the community, we recognise that every community has its own unique needs and concerns and that the people in those communities know best how to deal with those. By working with micro finance organisations such as Lend With Care we help empower local entrepreneurs to develop their local economies and reduce poverty in a sustainable way.
Working with other members of District 1210 the Rotary Club of Tettenhall has loaned over £360,000 to help 31,950 entrepreneurs around the world develop their businesses and create 17,636 jobs.
Following the heaviest recorded summer rainfall for over a decade Pakistan has been hit with floods which have affected over 33 million people, over 15% of the country’s population, with at least 1,136 people losing their lives since the monsoon season began in June.
Early estimates from Pakistan’s planning minister, Ahsan Iqbal, put the cost of the damage at £8.5 billion, with remote communities cut off, communication lines damaged and 150 bridges destroyed.
Around 1 million homes in the affected areas have been damaged or destroyed, leaving behind millions in need of urgent shelter.
Tettenhall Rotary Club has made a donation to ShelterBox, Rotary’s global partner in disaster relief, who already have people on the ground.
Shelterbox are focusing their attention on the most affected areas of Sindh, Punjab, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). The charity has a huge amount of experience supporting communities affected by flooding having responded to flooding at least 75 times since 2000, providing emergency aid and support to tens of thousands of families around the globe.
The work of the charity – which was founded in Helston, Cornwall, UK by Rotarian Tom Henderson, OBE, with the support of the Rotary Club of Helston-Lizard – recognises that recovery starts with shelter. Having somewhere dry and warm to sleep, to prepare meals and be with your family is vital in helping people start the long process of rebuilding their lives. Emergency shelter offers privacy and helps to preserve dignity. It offers protection from the elements, animals and disease. It helps keep communities together. It can help to bring back a sense of normality, allowing children to go back to school. Most importantly, it empowers families to start the process of getting back on their feet.
In addition to tents and tarpaulins each Shelterbox contains essential items such as water purification equipment, tools and cooking utensils to help those affected recover and to rebuild their homes.
From Cameroon to Syria, all the way to the Philippines and the Caribbean, Shelterbox have provided shelter to over 2 million people so far. You can help to support their work by donating now at https://shelterbox.org/donate/
Rotary believes that education is a right for all and that it strengthens our communities – because of this promoting literacy in one of our core areas of focus.
The annual cost to the UK economy alone of adults leaving school without being able to read, write and communicate successfully has been estimated at £2.5 billion. That problem is likely to have been made worse in recent years as school children have been denied the education they deserve due to the impact of the Covid pandemic.
In order to provide a safe environment for its pupils the Kings Church of England School in Tettenhall had to disband its library during Lockdown and once restrictions were lifted it became a priority for the School to open a proper library to help encourage a love of reading.
Tettenhall Rotary Club has been working with the School and its pupils to help re-open their library and to stock it with a diverse range of books from authors from a range of cultures and heritages reflecting the diverse backgrounds of the School’s pupils. The library has been designed to nurture the love of reading among all of the School’s pupils, many who may be without access to books at home.
With the help of The Rotary Foundation £4,000 has been donated to the project – a project which the School knows will not only improve pupil’s reading skills, but will also help to deliver better exam results. When we improve pupils’ literacy skills and help them to achieve better results, we create opportunities for them to continue in education, gain further qualifications and to access more, and improved, opportunities.
It was an honour to welcome Lisa Potts as our speaker at our recent meeting.
Lisa came to national prominence when in 1986 as a young primary school teacher she bravely protected her young pupils from a machete attack despite receiving horrific injuries to her head, arms and back.
The attack left Lisa facing years of surgery and rehabilitation as well as overcoming post traumatic stress disorder and depression but in spite of this she found the grace to forgive her attacker.
Lisa’s bravery was recognised by the award of the George Medal from the Queen in 1997 – the medal is on display in the Mayors Parlour in the Civic Centre – and earlier this year she was the first person in the City to be awarded the title of “Free Woman of the City of Wolverhampton”
In the years following the attack Lisa founded Believe to Achieve a charity that has achieved national recognition for its work helping to enhance children’s resilience, mental health, self-esteem, personal development, educational experience and future aspirations through therapy and counselling, community and school-based workshops and programmes, and holiday clubs. The Charity’s work has benefited thousands of children and young people across Wolverhampton and the surrounding area and President Mark was pleased to be able to support the continuing work of Believe to Achieve by presenting Lisa with a donation from the Club.
A simple 3 minute blood test could save the life of your husband, brother, father, son, friend… Let them know/forward/share to tell them to get along to the 3 Hammers Golf Complex on Old Stafford Road in Coven, Wolverhampton, WV10 7PP this Friday 14th June 2019 between 5.30pm – 8.30pm – there’s no need to book – you don’t even need to be a golfer – but please arrive and register as early as you can.
Please be a life saver and share details of this FREE event with friends and family.
The generous support which you have given to our Santa Sleigh this year has meant that the Club can continue to help local charities such as the Kingswood Trust.
For nearly 100 years the Kingswood site has given children from Wolverhampton and the surrounding areas the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of learning with nature. Originally established in 1923 as a holiday camp for poor children the site was acquired by the education authority after World War II to become an open air school for delicate children – many suffering from breathing problems and poor nourishment. With the improvement in the health of children in the early 1970’s the site’s focus shifted and it become an environmental residential centre for schools to learn in the great outdoors. Now an independent charity Kingswood Trust continues to provide outdoor education activities connecting children and the community to the natural world.
