Today, over 3 billion people worldwide live in the lowest poverty level, existing on less than £1 a day (1.3 billion of which live on less than 50 pence a day).
In these regions, there is intense demand on natural resources which often translates into hunger, famine and quite often, death.
How can we (those of us that are fortunate enough to have so much) contribute towards the solution to this catastrophic problem?
At REDAID, we believe that by providing long-term, sustainable solutions – we can not only make a meaningful contribution to global poverty and disaster relief – but that we can actually help to turn the tide by making a major positive impact on the reduction of this problem
ABOUT REDAID:
REDAID is a UK registered charity (since 2005).
HISTORY AND BACKGROUND:
We have been operating for more than 20 years as a channel through which individual and corporate philanthropists support causes which provide relief to those less fortunate.
Initially, these individual and corporate philanthropists provided funding to various small charitable organisations (which carry out charitable functions across the world) in an unorganised, ad-hoc manner.
Therefore, in order to make this direct funding process more streamlined, a select group of the most active of these philanthropists formed a UK based charitable body (REDAID, which became a registered entity in 2005) to co-ordinate the ‘giving’ activities of the other philanthropists and to provide help and assistance to them in order for their ‘giving’ to be more efficient & effective.
We did this in 2 ways: 1) we identified projects and programmes run by local charities/groups/NGO’s in specific parts of the world which the individual and corporate philanthropists were happy to support, and 2) we developed ways in which to help these small charitable organisations in a greater and a more expansive way – so that more people were helped in a more effective way.
This is the way we function upto this day: connecting individual and corporate philanthropists with local charities/groups/NGO’s in specific parts of the world which run projects and programmes that are in alignment with our mission & primary objectives.
THE NEED
In some places throughout the world, each day offers only a struggle of life & despair:
* 1.5 billion people in developing countries have no access to clean water and 3 billion have no access to sanitation
* 34.7 million children have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS
* 120 million children between five and 14 work full time and a further 130 million work part time
* Number of children in the world = 2.2 billion
* Number in poverty = 1 billion (every second child)
* 640 million children are without adequate shelter (1 in 3)
* 400 million children have no access to safe water (1 in 5)
* 270 million children have no access to adequate health services (1 in 7)
* Global hunger is measured in terms of "undernourished individuals" (i.e. those individuals whose food intake does not provide enough calories to meet basic energy requirements)
* Global natural disasters occur on a frequent basis
* Man-made disasters routinely exacerbate all of the above
THE MISSION
Our mission is to alleviate some of the suffering induced by the problems outlined above. Our mission statement therefore reflects both the simplicity and the difficulty of our mission:
HELPING THOSE WHO CANNOT HELP THEMSELVES
PRIMARY AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Founding Objectives:
To act as an umbrella/resource body - providing urgent & immediate relief from suffering and whatever support deemed necessary (through the provision of food & nutrition, medicine & healthcare, clothing & shelter, etc) and,
Also to provide long-term, sustainable support (through the provision of necessities, housing, education, employment, etc) to the disadvantaged and to those affected (persons, bodies, organisations and/or countries) by natural or other kinds of disaster, trouble or catastrophe – i.e. to our poor, hungry, ill, homeless and uneducated fellow human beings living in despair throughout the world.
Charitable & Social Aims:
As a UK registered charity, our social and charitable aims are to help as many children and their families as possible throughout the world to lead a better life. Our focus has always been to help & support destitute people directly and in a way so that they can rise above their situation to support themselves, for the long-term.
Disadvantaged people have different needs throughout the world whether it is food and shelter in Bangladesh or to develop skills which will enable young people to compete for jobs in the UK. We act to alleviate distress and to fulfil these needs.
In essence, we strive so that people throughout the world suffering from poverty & hardship will:
1. Gain shelter, food and clothes
2. Regain and maintain their health & well being
3. Have opportunities to help themselves out of poverty
4. Receive an education and gain life skills
5. Go on to gain full economic and personal integration.
Core Values:
We don’t believe in just giving handouts. We believe that people should be given the incentive, the encouragement, the help and the support to help themselves sustainably - for the long-term, and this is what we do best.
FINANCIAL STRUCTURE
Donation Income:
We function by connecting donors & supporters (individual and corporate philanthropists) with local charities/groups/NGO’s in specific parts of the world (the donors then fund the various activities directly themselves).
This means that as such donation funds are not given straight to us but directly to the relevant organisation abroad by the relevant donor/supporter - we cannot include this donation income in our public accounts.
For instance: a £50,000 project is to be funded by a donor – we will put the donor in touch with a local service provider (fund recipient) and the donor will pay them directly (i.e. the money does not go through our account).
This gives a highly distorted impression of our size and breadth of activities, which are in fact substantially greater than our public accounts may suggest.
Specific donation income from specific donors & supporters and income generated from commercial activities such as micro-finance initiatives and from sustainable micro-businesses operated by us as part of our support programme (usually initially funded from loans) enables us to repay any loans along with any associated returns.
Operational Expenditure:
Our operational strategy enables us to keep our operational costs as low as possible and to allocate money where it is absolutely necessary - thus allowing us to maximise the amount of work we do with the money raised from our donors and to leverage the skills, resource, experience & knowledge of other individuals and organisations.
As we become more operational in the UK and move towards providing services directly rather than the current facilitative role, we envisage our overheads increasing as we will need to take on additional staff & premises.
However, the ethos of maintaining low overheads will continue as we plan that most donor funds will continue to be directed to the end user as efficiently as possible and thus, we aim to keep our total overall operational expense at less than 8% of our total gross donation income.
Public Accounts:
Our annual income for the past years has been below £10,000. This is because we are an enabler of project work rather than a direct provider – and almost all of our direct project work is carried out by unpaid individuals and companies (i.e. on a pro-bono basis). Therefore, at present, our organisation operational expenditure is thus minimal.
GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT
Governing Document:
Our governing document is the Governing Constitution dated the 16th of March 2005, which is based on the Charity Commission’s “GD3-Model Constitution for a Charitable Unincorporated Association” template and the ‘Objects’ in the Constitution are based on the “Disasters Example Object”, found on the Commission’s website.
Organisational Structure:
There are more than 100 people associated with REDAID. These people live all over the world, representing the many geographical areas in which we work. The day-to-day management of REDAID has been devolved to the official, UK based trustees (this operational structure keeps the administrative & management burden and costs as low as possible).
Trustee Security - REDAID Trustees on the Charity Commission Public Register:
The publication of the names of our trustees on the public register has often been a cause for concern for many of our trustees because of security concerns. This is because in some cases, disclosing the names & addresses of a charity’s trustees may place them at risk.
However, where there is a risk of personal danger, the Charity Commission grants a dispensation to that charity so that the name & addresses of its trustees can be removed from the public register.
We have been granted such a dispensation because some of our members (who may become trustees in the future) may be placed at personal risk if their names & addresses were to be disclosed.
This is due to material help we give to groups of people which has the potential to cause conflict with other groups due to local and world politics.
OPERATIONAL SERVICE PROFILE
Our remit is worldwide and our projects are many and widely distributed (hence, they are not all listed in this website) and to keep costs low, we do not use printed publicity literature – we only have this website.
Who We Help (target service group):
In general, we help any humanitarian cause which might be experienced by a full range of target groupings such as the following:
1. Children/Young people
2. Elderly/Old People
3. People with disabilities
4. Other charities/Voluntary bodies
5. Other defined (NGO) groups
6. General public/Mankind
Current Sectors of Activity:
We have a broad remit under the overall heading of “general charitable purposes” which includes support provided in the following areas:
1. Overseas aid/Famine relief
2. Relief of Poverty
3. Disability
4. Medical/Health/Sickness
5. Accommodation/Housing
6. Economic/Community development/Employment
7. Education/Training
8. Arts/culture
9. Sport/recreation
10. Animals – in some areas of the world, local industry and livelihoods rely upon animals e.g. oxen to pull ploughs – we assist with the welfare of such animals and support the people who work side by side with them
11. Environment/Conservation/Heritage
Please see What we do and How we do it for more information about our work.
Make a Difference > Ease a Pain > Change a Life > Support us with your donations, online shopping & ebay trading
We know that giving your hard earned money is not easy, but any help you provide (even the price of a cup of coffee from Starbucks can buy a few days food in some parts of the world) will enable us to carry out immediate and vital relief work in many hyper-disaster & severe-poverty zones throughout the world - providing urgently needed food, medicine, shelter & support to starving children & their families, therefore...
PLEASE DON'T LEAVE WITHOUT HELPING THEM
Young, Hungry and Destitute
Hunger is a cruel and intense form of suffering
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