The ‘Meet the Charities‘ day takes place tomorrow, Wednesday 7th October, from 9am- 3pm. Mr Howard Green, from the Isle of Man International Development Committee, will be there to greet groups as they arrive. You will then have the chance to talk to representatives from the Manx based charities, ask them about their work, and then decide who you would like to represent.

Remember – you must send your first, second and third choices, in order of preference, not before 9am on Thursday 8th October. Any emails received before then will not be counted. Charities will be allocated on a first come first served basis.

Please email your choices directly to:

oneworldcharitychallenge@gmail.com

We need to know your names, which school you are from and your three choices.

You must include in your choices:

• One Isle of Man based charity from the charities listed on the website (many of whom you will be meeting).
• One small UK based charity working in the developing world you have chosen yourself – one that has a turnover of less than £100,000 and which has been running for at least three years.
• One of either of these or a UK-based charity listed on our website.

The final closing date for entries is 31st October.

Good luck, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow! Please come and talk to either Rosemary (Director of the One World Centre) or I if you have any questions tomorrow – you can also email me at the email address above.

Helen
Project Officer for the One World Charity Challenge

The date for the ‘Meet the Charities’ day has now been confirmed – Wednesday 7th October 2015 at St Ninian’s Church. This is a great opportunity to meet some of people involved in the Manx-based charities and to learn about the life-changing activities they undertake in the developing world. Many of these charities are quite small but take part in work that transforms lives for a lot of people – any contributions that they receive will make a big difference, to the charity and to the lives of the people that they help.

I am delighted to introduce myself as the new Project Officer for the One World Charity Challenge, taking over from Jenni Kneale. I am really looking forward to the challenges ahead!

We will shortly be visiting all of the island’s secondary schools and the Isle of Man College to introduce the Challenge to new Sixth form students this year. We hope that as many of you as possible will decide to take part – and help to transform the lives of those living in developing countries. It it will also help you to develop skills and will be great for CVs and University applications.

New this year – the chance to raise funds for your chosen charity! This means that you can help the charity that you select even more. Credit will be given for the amount raised by each team – but fundraising will also be assessed on the basis of creativity and determination.

Also new this year – the opportunity to suggest a UK charity to take part in the Charity Challenge. The charity must have an aspect of international development as its main aim, must have been operational for at least three years and must have an annual turnover of less than £100,000.

I look forward to meeting you all soon!

Helen Kneale, One World Charity Challenge Co-ordinator

Innovative presentation wins team £3,800 for Toybox street children charity

A team from Castle Rushen High School representing the international aid agency Toybox were the winners of this year’s One World Charity Challenge, held at the Manx Museum on Monday evening.

The six-strong team of Hannah Dixon, Hazel Matthews, Adele Harris, Danielle Akitt, Charlotte Darbyshire and Jack Maylin put together an innovative presentation based around a sketch of a music producer’s demand for a charity hit single.

It was an effective way to explore their chosen charity’s aims and objectives, and to highlight the ways in which Toybox successfully works to improve the lives of street children in South America.

Castle Rushen was one of six schools competing in the finals of the annual competition, with each team present having previously succeeded in getting through inter-school heats. As overall winners, Castle Rushen won £3,500 for Toybox as well as the Frances Davidson Cup. They also picked up another £300 as winners of the audience vote which was awarded separately.

One World Charity Challenge involves Year 12 students from the Island’s secondary schools and IoM College researching either a Manx charity that works overseas or a charity supported by the Isle of Man International Development Committee. They then put together a multimedia presentation on their findings, demonstrating an understanding of the charity’s goals and limitations and how their work meets the United Nations Millennium Goals to improve lives of the poorest and most disadvantaged people of the world.

The prize grant pool is generously donated by the H&S Davison Trust and match-funded by the Isle of Man International Development Committee. In total a grant pool of £22,000 was shared between teams participating in this year’s Challenge. Of this, £8,400 was distributed among teams in the preceding inter-school competitions with the remainder being distributed to the other finalists as follows:

Joint runners-up King William’s College representing Mannin Africa Sponsors International and QEII representing School for Uganda won £2,500 each for their respective charities.

The remaining finalists, Ballakermeen High School representing Action Saves Kids, Isle of Man College representing Pahar Trust and St Ninian’s representing Kocep were each awarded £1,600 for their charities.

Judges of the event included Hon Minister Phil Gawne MHK and David Anderson MHK who both sit on the International Development Committee, Paul Craine from the Department of Education and Children, Jo Callister from the Arts Council and local charity representatives Haresh Measuria and Jacqui Keenan as well a non-competing student from each participating school.

One World Centre Director Rosemary Clarke said “Once again we were treated to a tremendously inspiring evening, with all the finalists working hard to evaluate and educate about the charities they had chosen. Castle Rushen was a deserving winner – the way they interacted with their video was very clever, and who knows how far their charity single will go!”

We would really appreciate your feedback so that we can keep OWCC moving forwards for future students, please would you take a couple of minutes to complete this online survey for us https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/J53S2RH

Thank you 🙂

The final match between two teams at QEII took place on Monday this week. Teams representing Pestalozzi and School for Uganda put forward strong cases for each charity.

We were introduced to Dechen, a young Tibetan girl who had been given a life changing scholarship by Pestalozzi. The video used showed the team’s awareness of cultural issues, education and politics and to highlight the wide reaching outputs of Pestalozzi.

The School for Uganda team asked “What does £1 mean to you?” and went on to show how a community based project on the Isle of Man has resulted in a school being built for a community in Uganda. A fascinating charity which has pulled together many individuals, groups and businesses from the Manx community to bring education and sustainable living to a Ugandan community. School for Uganda will appear in the final, £600 was awarded to Pestalozzi.

The work of the charities represented at the Isle of Man College reaches out across the globe including Nepal, India, Romania and the African continent.

Capstone International Aid is a small local charity who coordinate and fund numerous different projects in areas of need. The team showed how this charity has made a real difference to people’s lives through successfully completing boreholes in Africa and starting a fire service in rural Romania. Team t-shirts, flags representing each country the Capstone works in, clear powerpoint slides and an understanding of the finances made for a well thought through and well delivered presentation.

The Pahar Trust team used lego house building to illustrate the work of their chosen charity. The judges gave this team a full five points for insight and understanding of the Millennium Development Goals. The realisation that £34 million spent on the new secondary school in Douglas would have paid for 1360 schools in Nepal showed how worthy this charity is.

One third of the world’s worst poverty is in India, where 98,000 people die each year from dysentery, clear reasons showing why team three chose to represent ManASVI. The judges liked the first person narrative of a child’s story which talked to us about gender inequality, street life, homelessness and the caste system in India.

Finally it was the turn of the Mothers’ Union team, who had chosen this charity because of the impact it has on thousands of people worldwide. Gender equality was the main focus for this group and they told us about domestic violence, knowledge of womens rights, HIV education, income generation and literacy rates. Their powerful videos really showed the difference the Mothers’ Union has made to women in Burundi.

It was a tough call for the judges with each presentation having its own unique merits, after much discussion the Pahar Trust was selected to go forward to the final. All teams not reaching the final were given a grant of £600 for their charities.

“6 million children will die before their fifth birthday” put the focus on two charities each supporting street children. Teams at Castle Rushen represented Toybox, a charity working in Latin America, and Hope for Children whose projects have a global reach across seven countries.

£600 was awarded to Hope for Children where the team had interviewed friends and teachers to create a snappy video to understand “what hope meant to them”. For some children in the developing world hope meant equality and the chance to live to their teenage years. 2015 was the target for the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, this team showed us to what extent the goals had been met and that there was yet more to be done. They concluded with “Everything that is done in the world is done by hope” Martin Luther King Jr.

Toxboy was chosen as the finalist for Castle Rushen. The team wowed with a lively, creative and hugely innovative presentation. They had clearly understood the work of their charity and put the information across in a very engaging way. To say more now would be to give away spoilers….

Judges were treated to a quiz round, live singing, food, video, some hard hitting facts and figures and serious critique of the MDGs at Ballakermeen on Monday evening. Charities Leonard Cheshire Disability, Action Saves Kids, Thari Mache Eduction and a new charity Everton Skomboys were represented by the four teams at Ballakermeen.

Stories of poverty turned to stories of hope, an close look at how each charity has made an impact on the lives of young people across the globe. Manxman Steve Allen founded the Everton Skomboys charity and it is amazing to see what one man can achieve in a small community in South Africa. Through football Steve brings education, skills and community benefits to young people who may otherwise be on the streets.

Carole Edgecox, also a Manx resident, heads up the charity Action Saves Kids, her tireless work over the years has brought hope and assistance to many orphaned children in Bangalore, India.

Thare Machi Education brings educational DVDs to impoverished areas. All DVDs are produced in local languages and provide information and advice on healthcare, malaria, HIV, pregnancy. The team had identified the connection with ebola hit areas and shared a snippet of the ebola DVD which was very thought provoking. It was clearly demonstrated how this charity works toward many MDGs.

The MDGs were seriously challenged by the Leonard Cheshire Disability group who highlighted the omission of any goals relating to disability. They reminded us that the any measure of success toward these goals should look at how the weakest members of society are included.

After a very informative an eye-opening evening the judges agreed that Action Saves Kids would be the group to go through to the final. The three remaining charities were awarded £600 each.

Two teams went head to head last week at the St Ninian’s in-school final. First up was team ‘Jaribu’ representing KOCEP, formerly the Koru Hospital Fund. Music and images introduced the audience to the ‘majesty of Africa’ which quickly shifted to what lay ‘behind the mask’. The judges liked the team’s Question Time style interview which highlighted the Millennium Development Goals. This was well thought out presentation which hit all the key points.

Second up was “Your Ghana Send us a Cow”. Representing the charity Send A Cow this team gave a well researched presentation, which included plenty of facts and figures about both the charity and the Millennium Development Goals. Their videos showed how the charity empowers women and helps to build communities through the ‘pass it on’ concept. The students themselves observed that through this project they had learned valuable lessons about Send A Cow and also some of the challenges involved in running a charity. As the team name might imply students had had fun with this presentation and frequent humorous anecdotes kept the presentation lively with various changes of mooo-d!

Judges commented that they were concious of how both groups had worked as good teams and had clearly had fun. After some deliberation it was decided that KOCEP would go forward to the final. £600 was awarded to Send A Cow.