To celebrate its 20th anniversary, CWU Humanitarian Aid (CWUHA) will be taking on one of its most ambitious projects to date. As has become typical of the charity over the years, this project will focus on assisting needy children with plans to renovate a rundown school in Moldova into an activity centre for disabled children.

Working with the charity’s partner MAD-AID, the new centre will provide an early intervention unit for children with physical disabilities aged from 0-5 as well as facilities for disabled teenagers to learn how to become independent. With an on-site rehabilitation centre catering to a wide-range of needs and conditions, the facility will also act as a central point for wheelchair distribution in the region. In addition to providing crucial services to disabled children in the area, it is also hoped that the new centre will uplift the local community through job creation.

“Our anniversary project is our biggest undertaking in 15 years,” said CWUHA chair Carl Webb, “but we need as much help as possible to make sure this project is a resounding success.

“This mission will improve the quality of life for many disabled children and their families who don’t have access to the help and support they need. This facility will not only provide medical assistance but also a safe area where children with disabilities will be able to learn as they play.

“Such an ambitious project is of course quite costly. We need to raise £60,000 and we need all the help we can get to do it. Any donation, no matter how big or small, goes a long way to reaching our fund raising target and changing the lives of children for the better. We’re appealing to members, branches, employers and anyone who is able to help, to please do so,” urged Carl.

“This mission will improve the quality of life for many disabled children and their families”Carl Webb, CWUHA chair

To make a donation to support CWUHA’s 20^thanniversary project please visit:http://mydonate.bt.com/events/cwuha20aniversaryproject/207369

Any branches wishing to donate can send cheques made payable to ‘CWUHA’ (writing anniversary project on the back of the cheque) to:

Eric Parker
CWUHA Financial Officer
20 Great Cob
Springfield
Chelmsford
Essex
CM1 6LA

“We promise that 100 per cent of all money donated will be spent on this project and not a penny on admin,” he added.

Carl, who is also the CWU North West regional secretary, has been at the helm of the charity since he and Dennis McWilliams, former Midlands regional secretary, formed CWUHA in 1995. Both have been closely involved in many charitable missions, projects and convoys over the years. Since the first convoy – delivering aid to a town in war-torn Bosnia – the determination to deliver the aid direct to those who needed it most, cutting out the risk of it falling into the hands of self-interested middlemen, set the agenda for every CWUHA convoy that was to follow.

As much as there are other charities who supply aid to needy children, what makes CWUHA unique is the founding principle that volunteers actually deliver aid to the places where it is most needed ensuring that aid is delivered directly to the point of need. Additionally, CWUHA pays no wages or honoraria and the CWUHA office is run at virtually no cost thanks to the CWU and BT cutting out the general costs of administration and rent.

In addition to convoys, CWUHA has funded other major projects in Moldova and all over the world with the aim of keeping children off the streets and away from harm. The Kilima Hewa School project in Tanzania, East Africa, is just one of many examples of CWUHA’s success in the past twenty years. The school, run out of the home of one of the locals, provides education to children that cannot afford to go to a local primary and where accepted forms of payment include firewood and maize. CWUHA has also donated thousands of pounds towards the Thailand tsunami and Haiti earthquake appeals and to the families affected by earthquakes in India and Pakistan, as well as delivering tons of clothing to street children in Mongolia via a third party.

Though the majority of CWUHA’s work is focused on other countries, the charity has raised and donated thousands of pounds to many good causes in the UK, including hospices, a holiday home for children with life-threatening illnesses and helped fund specialised operations and equipment for children in the UK.