MoneySavingExpert.com Charity Fund Nominate a Charity June 08

tishunt

I would like to nominate the Volunteer Reading Help
www.vrh.org.uk
Confident Children...literate for life

This charity recruits, train and supports volunteers than work with children aged between 6 and 11 years of age. The children they work with need extra support and guidance to develop their reading skills - this maybe due to low academic achievements, family issues, health or social issues.
The volunteers come from all walks of life and work with 3 children twice a week on a one-to-one basis - this could be in a school, library or care home environment. During these sessions they will encourage the children to develop reading skills by reading, talking, playing games, crafts absolutely anything.

I have seen some amazing results whereby children who had no reading skills at all , feel confident in picking up a book, reading loud to an audience in just a matter of 4-6 weeks.

This is a fantastic scheme which is so important as without reading skills anyone would struggle in todays world and wouldn't be able to take advantage of MSE let alone understand the everyday world.

Please support this charity.
thanks

leonclowes

a. YouthNet

b. www.TheSite.org

c. Expert non-judgmental online advice for young people

d. I'm a former staff member of the charity, and I really can't recommend this cause enough - TheSite.org gives 16-25 year olds brilliant advice which they can trust, and one of the key areas of advice is financial matters - MoneySavingExpert.com has many similarities - I think many of the users on here would find this a useful wesbite too - whatever their age! At last count (or at least two years ago when I worked there) 500,000 people log on each month, seeking advice, asking personal financial advice and sharing stories and experiences across a range of issues, finance being a big area, especially for young people managing their budgets for the first time - moving out from home, going to college, starting jobs, paying bills, etc. They also run the excellent UK online volunteering database www.do-it.org which provides volunteers to thousands of financial advice charities across the country.

ktlouise_2

a. CLIC Sargent
b. http://www.clicsargent.org.uk/Home
c. Caring for children and young people with cancer
d. Every day 10 families are told their child has cancer. As the UK's leading children's cancer charity, CLIC Sargent is the only organisation to offer them all round care and support. That’s because we’re there every step of the way:

During treatment – providing specialist nurses, doctors, play specialists, Homes from Home

In hospital & at home – offering specialist social care and family support in the community – specialist youth services, holidays, grants, a helpline

After treatment – helping survivors, supporting those bereaved, research.
As a young person with cancer CLIC Sargent helped my family with grants (enabling my Mum to support me during my operation) and a volunteer so I could have someone to talk to and go out with.

Please support them by thanking me for this post! :T

bevgordon

Supporting all victims of crime.

Victim Support is a national charity. 92% of its workers are highly trained volunteers. They are often the first port of call for someone who needs help whether or not they have reported the crime to the police. The volunteers support women and men who have experienced domestic abuse even if they intend staying with their partners. Support is also provided for victims of sexual crimes, homicide and other crimes. We refer people onto other agencies for more specialised support, but sometimes just our listening ear is enough. There is a helpline that is open 8am-8pm and people can refer themselves for help. www.victimsupport.org.uk

ashtree_2

I got hooked in the us, glad to see it is around the world, it is a great organization.

Ashley
:beer: (sadly, the only way that I will get a drink in my pregnant state!)

lasagne wrote: »

a. Freecycle UK

b. www.uk.freecycle.org

c. Local community groups saving money and the environment

d. The charity has been formed to offer structured support for Freecycle groups all round the UK. Brilliant work is being done by volunteers up and down the country running internet based groups for their communities to facilitate reuse and recycling to cut the amount of stuff going to landfill. The aim of the charity is to provide services and support, including a more user-friendly website, to ensure:

• provision of more groups
• continuity of services
• effective assistance network for group moderators and members.

Freecycle provides a great service to a membership of over a million in the UK - saving money, building local communities, cutting down on landfill. Support from MSE in recommending the service has been much appreciated. It would be wonderful if volunteers and members could also benefit from a funded central infrastructure. Thanks for reading!

loclnor

www.epilepsyresearch.org.uk
Research into the causes and prevention of Epilepsy

Epilepsy cannot be diagnosed unless someone else is present at the time someone has a seizure. My daughter died of SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy) which occurs at night - we didn't even know she had epilepsy although she could have been having seizures at night.

When 600 people a year (mostly under the age of 25) die like this, something must be done to detect and prevent people dying in such a tragic and sudden way. More people in the UK die from Epileptic Seizures than die from Cot Deaths and Aids together and yet research is very poorly funded in comparison.

Please visit their website to see the work they do.

Thank you for reading this. Please support this worthy cause.

heatherkirchoff

SANDS website is www.uk-sands.org they have just launched 'Why 17?' campaign to raise money to investigate why 17 babies die around the time of birth every day in the UK. Lets try to make a difference.

loena

Freecycle(TM) is a wonderful group and it is great that it has been nominated for Charity of the Year. :T

lasagne wrote: »

a. Freecycle UK

b. www.uk.freecycle.org

c. Local community groups saving money and the environment

d. The charity has been formed to offer structured support for Freecycle groups all round the UK. Brilliant work is being done by volunteers up and down the country running internet based groups for their communities to facilitate reuse and recycling to cut the amount of stuff going to landfill. The aim of the charity is to provide services and support, including a more user-friendly website, to ensure:

• provision of more groups
  
• continuity of services
• effective assistance network for group moderators and members.

Freecycle provides a great service to a membership of over a million in the UK - saving money, building local communities, cutting down on landfill. Support from MSE in recommending the service has been much appreciated. It would be wonderful if volunteers and members could also benefit from a funded central infrastructure. Thanks for reading!

sophiedb

a. Association of Breastfeeding Mothers

b. http://www.abm.me.uk/

c. Raising awareness of the benefits of breastfeeding.

d. ABM counsellors support new (and expectant) parents with ongoing advice regarding breastfeeding - its benefits for both mum and baby, how to overcome problems, and any other issues that may crop up. This could be delivered by phone, email, support group or at home - what matters is that help is available. Wider consequences of breastfeeding are massive savings for the parents (no need for formula or the kit), less pollution for the world (same!) and fewer babies in hospital with gastroenteritis (10x more likely when formula fed, at an approximate annual cost to the NHS of £18 million).

Nitram_2

a) ChildAid
b) www.childadirr.org.uk
c) Transforming lives of children in Moldova and Ukraine
d) Moldova is the poorest country in Europe (average wages of £65). Disabled kids get very little support as government and parents can't afford it. ChildAid gives non-invasive, free treatments such a physio, speech therapy etc. The majority of funding for the health centre in the capital that ChildAid works with comes from the UK - last year 450 therapies were given to 200 kids. Tip of the iceberg of the 13,000 registered disabled. Much more can be done (and needs to be done in a country whose healthcare is 50 years behind us) with more support. ChildAid is pretty small and ALL donations from here will go to the health centre. Moldovans are lovely lovely people (read Tony Hawks book "Playing the Moldovans at Tennis") and can't do enough for anyone who visits them - let's give them something back!

Nitram :T