For the April/May issue of Charity Matters the publisher is starting a new directory, listing those event venues and other suppliers that offer discounts to charities using them, and published at the end of the newsletter.

For the suppliers this will be a low-cost proposition of a total £50 for up to 100 words of text published in six issues over twelve months, which can include details of the venue/product, the charity discount offered and contact details. Suppliers that are also charities can have this flagged up and can book for £40.

Click here for more details.

A seven year old Somerset schoolgirl is setting adults the best possible example of true charity, by spending some of her time visiting lonely elderly neighbours who are on their own and who see very few people. (Mature Times)

Lana Rowntree was touched by television reports featuring the loneliness of some pensioners who hadn’t had a visitor for six months and sent a hand-written letter, decorated with a drawing of her family, to the North Somerset Times asking if any pensioners would like to “be her friend”. She is now visiting one elderly lady on a regular basis, who is teaching her how to knit. Continue reading →

Ahead of next year’s London summit on sexual violence in war zones Save the Children have revealed the uncomfortable truth that the majority of rape victims are children of both genders, in some cases just babies, and in some cases killed after the abuse. As well as soldiers perpetrators have been found to be opportunistic sexual predators, including teachers, religious leaders, peacekeepers and family members. Most offences go unreported, often due to the shame of the victims.

The summit, fronted by Foreign Secretary William Hague and UN special envoy for refugees Angelina Jolie will be attended by representatives from 137 countries and aims to stop the sexual violence common in war-zones being ignored for the sake of a peace treaty, also a reason why prosecutions are so few. Continue reading →

Large multi-national corporations are hoping to be able to sue governments for passing consumer protection laws that reduces their profits, according to charity Wikipedia.

The new and controversial power will be given to companies by clauses in the far-reaching Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, a secretive free-trade agreement currently being thrashed out between twelve countries – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, USA and Vietnam. Continue reading →

The headteacher of the Welsh school who banned a pupil from normal lessons for having his head shaved to raise money for a cancer charity has expressed his dismay at being criticised in the press. (See Charity Matters October/November 2013, NO SKINHEADS HERE, LOOK YOU)

Rodney Francis wrote to parents after his ill-conceived decision caused more than 250 pupils to walk out in disgust, claiming that his Milford Haven School was “at the centre of public attention because of events relating to a breach of the school rules” rather than events set in motion by his own poor judgement. He expressed his desire to “move forward” (don’t they all?) and claimed that this was in the interests of all pupils, rather than his own. In what came across as a threat Francis also reminded parents that they and their children had signed a home-school contract to abide by the school rules. Continue reading →

The killing of elephants in Africa for their ivory tusks has significantly increased over the last five years, as the price of ivory has rocketed to exceed that of gold, driven by demand from the new middle-class of China.

Charity Space for Giants, which employs just forty people to protect elephants has also warned that sympathy for elephant welare in Africa is tempered by the damage they can do to crops, an aspect that can deeply affect some of the poorest people on the planet.

An Elephant Appeal, to support the charity is being run by Independent newspapers and the Evening Standard.

A man who lied that he ran a charity to claim gift aid and cheat the taxpayer out of £885,000 has been jailed for four years.

Mark Lewis, 40, from Porth, South Wales was helped in his fraud by his wife Elizabeth, 38, who was a fraud investigator for the Department of Work and Pensions and who received a suspended sentence for money laundering.

Warnings earlier this year from the NSPCC about the dangers of children being targeted by paedophiles on social media websites have been confirmed by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, CEOP.

According to CEOP, an international squad of police officers with special experience of tracking and prosecuting sex offenders, a fast-growing trend is for paedophiles, hiding behind easily set up false social media identities, to pressurise children as young as eight into posting compromising pictures of themselves. The victims are then threatened with exposure to their family if they don’t agree to be filmed writing degrading statements on their bodies, or self-harming. Continue reading →

British Airways are facing an enormously damaging lawsuit from victims of a BA pilot who used the cover of charity work for the airline to abuse children, mainly in Africa which was on one of his regular routes.

First Officer Simon Wood, 54, threw himself under a train at Potters Bar on August 18th, two days after being charged with indecent assault of an 8 year-old schoolgirl and possessing indecent images of children. Evidence was obtained to show that he had visited a number of paedophile websites and school uniforms were found in his car. Continue reading →