Headlines
 

February 2009

Exciting things to Come! The UK office is busy hatching dozens of fundraising plans for 2009! New and exciting things to look forward to include music gigs with VERY famous headlining acts, a 'legends' football match between Man City and Man Utd, a series of regional music gigs, sponsored events and more... We will publish more online as soon as events are confirmed.

Mother's Day March 22nd This Mother's Day we are producing extra special cards which can be purchased for a £10 donation. The money from your card will go to help a child who does not have a Mum. The card has been designed by Rosa, aged 6, who lives in our 'Safe House' and who does not have the love and support of a parent. We hope that the proceeds from this initiative will fund our safe house project. read more

San Felipe School Update Our negotiations over the San Felipe Primary School have sadly not progressed any further. Due to the economic crisis, the exchange rate took a tumble and the £150,000 that we had raised no longer gave us enough Guatemalan Quetzals to purchase the school. The landlord has agreed to let us rent the school until the end of 2009 which gives enough time to raise further funds, or to find an alternative building.

 

January 2009

Christmas Cheer for Guatemala Our Christmas gifts campaign was a huge success! We raised £3797 and helped out some 100 families in Guatemala. For more information and for photos of how you helped see our christmas gifts report.

Recession fears There's no ignoring it, we are officially in a recession. The Foundation has been tightening its belt for the past few months but as 2009 progresses, we know we are going to have some tough times ahead. In reaction, we have frozen the number of students at our schools in Guatemala and we are looking at a whole range of new fundraising schemes. We're glad that we have so many dedicated supporters- and we hope that you will all continue to support the work that we are doing despite the credit crunch.

Money for old phones The Foundation has started collecting old mobile phones. For each mobile phone that we are given, we can earn up to £10. That's enough money to feed a class for a day! If each of our supporters collected just 5 mobile phones, this would feed every student in our schools for the whole of 2009! So please, ask your friends and family if they have any old mobile phones that they can donate to us... and we can turn it into a lifeline for the children of Guatemala.

 

December 2008

Fun and Games in Nottingham The 3rd annual Hilton Hotel event was a roaring success. We had more party goers than ever before and we raised a record breaking £15,000! Tommy Johnson and friends led the party late into the night and the atmosphere was fantastic. Thanks to everyone that came and got involved.

Celebs come out in Manchester Shaun Wright-Phillips hosted our Manchester Event on 20th November at Manchester City Football Club. We donned our most glamourous of outfits and sipped champagne with some of football's hottest celebs. Guests included Micah Richards, Vincent Kompany, Andy Cole, Titus Bramble, Andy Griffin, Michael Thomas, Brian Kidd, Gary Owen and DJ Spoony. We raised a whopping £20,000.

Getting in the Christmas Spirit Our Christmas Catalogue is proving to be a brilliant success, with ethical supporters choosing to donate to Guatemala instead of buying the usual bubble bath! Here at our Nottingham office we are lucky to have a new volunteer to help with all the orders- thanks Boo for all your help! Also a special thank you to www.bigpencil.co.uk for the brochure design and production.

 

November 2008

Another Grant for the New School Project! The Opengate Trust are the latest charitable organisation to support Education for the Children Foundation. They have donated £3000 to go towards our New School Project taking us even closer to our total. We are incredibly grateful for Opengate's generosity and we hope to be able to report back to all our donors with news of a successful campaign by the end of the year.

Graduations 2008 The 2008 school year has come to an end! The graduation ceremonies have been and gone and we were delighted to see 27 Primary school students graduating and 22 Basico students graduating.  It looks as though we may have had a record breaking year as the pass rates were incredibly high accross all the years. Sponsors will be informed of their children's grades in due course. The next school year starts in January so it's 'summer holidays' for the children until then. In the meantime the Foundation will be finding other poor families in the area who need our help.

It's Party Time   November is the most manic month for the UK team at EFTC. We have two massive events- our annual Nottingham bash on the 14th November and our first ever ball at Manchester City Football Club on the 20th November. If you're not involved yet there's still time to get tickets (if you're really quick)- check out our events page for more information. A massive thanks go out to Tommy Johnson and Shaun Wright-Phillips for all their work for the charity and for getting these exciting events on the calendar.

 

October 2008

Grants Success for New School EFTC was recently awarded £20,000 to go towards the New School in San Felipe by The Allan & Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust. This has helped boost our total so far to £87,344 - just £60,000 short of the total.      With two of our biggest fundraising events still coming up in November we are hoping that we will make the grand total... but only if your generosity continues!      We were also delighted to get a £50,000 grant from The Premier League earlier in the year.      Our thanks go out to the two trusts and to all who have already pledged donations.

Shaun's move to Manchester Shaun Wright-Phillips, EFTC's ambassador, recently moved from Chelsea to Manchester City Football Club.      Shaun's pledge to help the charity has caused a ripple of interest at Man City and it seems as though the move could be beneficial to the charity.      The transfer has already given Shaun and the Charity the opportunity to hold an event at Manchester City Football Club within the first couple of months at the club.      The event will be the first since Shaun joined, and since the Abu Dhabi Group purchased the Club in September 2008.

Luis and Carlos  head home The two Guatemalan brothers, Luis and Carlos, are heading back to Guatemala after spending 10 months in the UK.      They won scholarships on our programme in 2007 to come and study English at New College in Nottingham to help progress their future job prospects even further.      Luis, 19, hopes to continue his studies at University in Guatemala City in January while Carlos, 24, wants to try and find employment.     Their English has progressed enormously in this time and their experience in England will hopefully give them a huge headstart as they head home to their family.

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