Newsletter 13 and April 1st. I'm not sure that this is an auspicious day for our latest UpDate.
BUT this is all true!
We are pleased to announce that we have moved to our new office which is near Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds. This is more central for our team and offers us a larger office, reception facilities, and meeting rooms, all with plenty of parking.
Full details can be found on our web-site: http://www.changemakerweb.co.uk/contact.asp
We have been joined by Claire Wingfield on a temporary basis to give Julie some much needed support. Claire will be based at the new office until July when she will move to the small Caribbean island of St Eustatius for 7 months to volunteer for the St Eustatius National Parks. This is a not-for-profit organisation that carries out nature conservation on the dormant volcano (The Quill), and in the national marine park, specialising in sea turtle conservation and protection of the coral reefs that surround the island.
What a choice to make - the Cotswolds or the Caribbean!
However we always knew that Claire's employment was on a temporary basis and so we are now looking for local support and our future plan is to increase the size of our office team to help us to meet the increased demands of our work-load.
Andy and Cath will continue to work from the Swallett Lodge address. For the moment the old office number will be diverted to the new office so the best way to get:
Andy is: 07831 690645
Cath is: 01249 890031
To celebrate our move to the Cotswolds we would like to invite you for afternoon Cotswold Tea at one of our local country manor hotels during May. Meet with one (or more if there are nice cakes!) of our directors and have a chat over tea about current organisational issues and your development plans.
Drop us a line if you would like to visit us: office@changemakerweb.co.uk
Natural Born Leaders
Although our Warrior School Programmes take place in Tanzania and in Northern Kenya well away from the troubled areas, our participants often have to pass through Nairobi. As a result we have decided to postpone any trips in the early part of 2008 whilst we review the political situation in Kenya and look at re-routing our journeys.
Our last trip in 2007 was attended by Nicola Harrison, a journalist from Human Resources Magazine, this resulted in a main feature article titled Natural Born Leaders in their March 2008 edition. This can also be found at: http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/news/
Social Responsibility
ChangeMaker is committed to the development of education in its broadest sense. A small part of this has been to help in sponsoring schools in the part of Africa we use as "our classroom" for our DiscoveryLearning experiences.
During our most recent WarriorSchool in October 2007 Chris met the staff and pupils of the Olpalagilagi Primary School and we have decided to help them to build a new classroom.
The school is located on the Maasai Mara Serengeti border; it was established in 1995 with funds given by Narok County Council for construction of a classroom. Although construction started in 1996 it was never completed due to inadequate funds. Cottar's Camp (the organisation we have been staying with) intervened and took over the construction of the classroom until completion in 1998. During 2000 they started construction of a second classroom and teachers' housing which was completed in May 2007; the camp also pays for two teachers salaries, which at the local rate costs a total of 428 USD per month.
The cost of a new classroom has been estimated at 5715 USD or approximately £2857 at today's exchange rate. We already collected about half the funds thanks to several generous and regular donors to our projects in Africa and specific donations from the Kingsbridge Estuary Rotary Club and the children of the East Allington Primary School. Our goal is to raise the rest of the money needed.
If you would like to help us by making a donation however small or large, please e-mail office@changemakerweb.co.uk and we will let you know to do it. We will keep all donors regularly informed about progress!
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