Uniting Communities, Tackle Global Issues

Dear Supporters,

COVID-19 iis becoming the word we are all fed up with hearing but the reality is that it has turned lives upside down around the world and charities have been hanging on like everyone else while trying to continue to support, provide and bridge the gap between emergency relief and our communities around the world. 

September 2020 marks our 15 year anniversary. Although we face one of the most challenging times in our history we are confident that with special people like you in our corner helping us survive another day will help us build, grow and develop over the next 15 years. 

We are in a state of emergency as a charity, all our projects need our help and our overall financial funding is at an alarming all time low but like everyone we still put a smile on our face and work extremely hard to ensure we can still help save lives through our projects. As the CEO of our charity I spent the day out in Nomzamo last week, a township that homes people that have fled to the city in search for work. These community members like day to day in overcrowded shacks and since March they have been a part of one of the strictest lockdowns across the world that has turned the immediate disaster from COVID to hunger and poverty. Many of these individuals lost their job and with no savings and no backup have been left facing hunger and poverty and this is becoming more alarming in the community than COVID. 

The local government announced financial relief but due to mis-management or corruption these funds are simply not available to these people in need. The sense of community in places like this is incredible and I met a local women that has been part of our women empowerment project in the past that decided to setup a soup kitchen that is now hustling for food donations and volunteers and providing over 500 meals to the community every day and they will not stop as this is often the only food available to these people. 

Your donations are on the way to purchasing a second stove because currently 4 volunteers in the community are cooking on 2 gas rings in a container which leaks from the rain, These women start early every morning and work hard non-stop to prepare and provide 500 cooked meals. It costs around $25 a week for gas on top of the food, fuel to transport the food around. Please take the time to watch a short video I prepared after my visit. 

This is not the only place donations are being used, your donations are for the first time in 15 years helping us to keep the office lights on! We pride ourselves on being one of the lowest running cost charities with it costing around $8,000 a month for everything such as salaries, finance, legal, office rent, laptop, internet… everything we need to operate but we are struggling to survive and our save the charity appeal to this project has helped us survive another day. 

Further afield we have funded a toll-free safe, secure emergency line for domestic abuse victims, something we have seen high increase due to COVID-19 lockdowns, we are funding our enterprise projects that had to be suspended, funding soup kitchens, funding our homeless shelter and much more. Every penny is hard at work helping people in need to survive 2020. 

We still have more to do with an urgent appeal for oxygen in Peru to our communities requesting support to adapt the community with re-training in COVID and other key employability training for those that have lost their jobs. 

If you have not already please take the time to sign up to our updates as we have something very exciting to share as part of our 15 year anniversary in September and we want you to be a part of it. I also appeal to you if you can please help with any donations to this project so we can keep up the great work of all our projects. 

If you have any questions then we always love to hear from you so please connect with us on hello@actionchange.org 

A very big thank you for your continued support!

With Gratitude,

Uniting Communities

Dear Supporters,

We started 2020 off as a positive year ahead with so many plans to raise funds and take all 65 projects to the next step of sustainability. Unfortunately with the unexpected spread of COVID-19 this vision was short lived. We have all had to learn to adapt and some of our great plans for the year ahead have been forced to be put on hold while we enter a state of global emergency. 

Due to the support you have shown and given us over the past few years we have been able to adapt to support those in need but we are far from being over this pandemic and the future of either surviving or coming out stronger is down to each and every one of us. 

This global pandemic has brought unplanned and unexpected events on everyone. People have been forced to stay at home and adapt to social distancing as well as many of us left with pay cuts, job losses and forced unpaid leave. This has impacted every economy but some of those economies have been hit even further resulting in no access to PPE, food and critical resources.  Governments are engaged and doing their but but so many communities and individuals around the world fall through the cracks and this is why charities like us are vital for helping those through such a crisis. 

Since COVID-19 we have amended our policies, processes and fundraising efforts to focus on helping everyone through COVID-19 and this is continuing to be a huge challenge for us. Our partners in South Africa are in desperate need of resources to increase their capacity at a safe house for women and children that are victims of domestic abuse, this has seen record numbers of increase due to forced national lockdown. Our homeless projects are in need of our support to help isolate people showing symptoms. In Fiji our community outreach team have learnt to adapt and support people remotely and in Thailand our community have become overwhelmed due to the crash of their tourist industry leaving the village without enough supplies for them to survive. 

We have recently connected a number of our women empowerment projects in Africa to allow our women to work together remotely to make fabric masks that have already been distributed to the local hospital and frontline staff. The team today is actively making a second batch that will be funded by you and your donations to donate to a second hospital and a group of local township frontline workers. 

As we slowly move to control the spread of the virus and work to protect everyone across all our communities in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Pacific we also have plans for the rebuild of all our projects that we will need to work to fundraise with your support for over the next 6-12 months. These include launching new recovery projects that help people retrain and re-skill to tackle unemployment, helping others recover or start up their own business to initiatives that will help accelerate education for missed lessons during lockdown. 

We know that we will come out the other side of this but with your donations, help and support we are motivated to do more and make sure everyone not just survives but comes out stronger and ready to grow.  

Please watch a short video message from our CEO on COVID-19. 

Remember we can only do all these amazing things with you behind us!

Thank You!

With Gratitude,

Uniting Communities

Links:

• Video message from our CEO on COVID-19