Day 14 and it’s the day of our Christmas Party, Yay! We will be combining Secret Santa, party gifts and the raffle to raise funds tonight. All and the proceeds will be given to selected charities. So as not to spoil the surprise for party goers, details will be given tomorrow.
For day 13 of our Advent Calendar we donating £150 to Life for African Mothers
Life for African Mothers is a Maternal Health charity aiming to make birth safer in Sub Saharan Africa, by providing medication to treat eclampsia and post partum haemorrhage.
By providing medication to treat the complications of child birth, they have been able to support hospitals and health centres across Africa and see huge reductions in maternal mortality.
They also facilitate midwifery training programmes in several countries to help train and update qualified midwives to enhance their clinical skills in caring for mother and baby.
We are half way through our Advent Calendar and for day 12 we be making a delivery of donated Christmas food to the Lowestoft Night Shelter now known as the Access Community Trust. 
Their vision is to promote social inclusion for the community benefit by preventing people from becoming socially excluded, relieving the needs of those who are socially excluded and assisting them to integrate into society.
For the 11th day of our Advent Calendar will be adding £50 to our existing credit of £163 at Lendwithcare. This will allow us to help at least a further 10 entrepreneurs setup or continue their business in hard hit areas of the world.
Lendwithcare brings together entrepreneurs in developing countries with people with the power to help them – people like us and you. Run by one of the world’s leading aid and development organisations, Lendwithcare is a revolutionary way to help people in the developing world to transform their lives.
Since joining Lendwithcare the Rotary Club of Southwold and District has made 84 loans totalling £1470. We have helped 767 Entrepreneurs and 2865 Families creating 174 jobs.
10 days into our Advent Calendar now and it’s time for a very special donation. We will be donating £469 to Water Aid. Why such a specific amount? Any donation made before the end of January 2018 will be matched be the UK Government pound for pound doubling it to £938. This will then be enough to buy a new handpump for a village bringing clean water to the heart of a community.
An example from Water Aid’s website. Click here to read more.
Deep in the jungle of Sierra Leone, Tombohuaun’s residents are determined to live life to the full, despite the day-to-day struggle of having only dirty water to drink and no decent toilets.
Day 9 of our Advent Calendar and we will be donating £250 to SERV (Service by Emergency Response Volunteers) Norfolk. SERV are part of the national umbrella group “Blood Bikes”.
SERV Norfolk is a registered charity no.1148669 run by local volunteers that transports blood, plasma, platelets, samples, vaccines, donor breast milk & any other urgently required medical items to hospitals –
SERV Norfolk covers the county of Norfolk and is run by dedicated volunteers who receive no financial compensation for their time or costs.
It’s day 8 of our Advent Calendar and we have once again prepared welcome bags for the women’s refuges in Lowestoft and Diss.
These bags contain essential items and a few luxuries for women and their children who have had to leave home at short notice. Many of them escaping abuse or violence. 24 bags have been collected and delivered. The project is the brainchild of, and coordinated by, Past president Cathy Ryan.
It’s more Christmas trees for day 7 of our Advent Calendar. We have erected and decorated a tree for the residents of Pitches View in Reydon
and provided another tree for the display in St. Mary’s Church in Halesworth.
For day 6 of our Advent Calendar we will be buying a donkey and a goat through the charity “Kids for Kids”
KIDS FOR KIDS helps children the world has forgotten, children in Darfur, Sudan, who live lives of inexcusable and unimaginable hardship. Our key project is a goat loan – we don’t believe in charity, we believe in enabling people to help themselves. Children are malnourished in every village. Many have had no protein, minerals or vitamins for months on end which not only means lasting damage to them physically but their IQ is reduced, often irreparably. Goat’s milk transforms a child’s health. 
Goat loans are just one way we help. By providing an integrated package of sustainable projects which parents tell us will help them the most – projects suitable to the region which have both an immediate, and a long-term impact – we are lifting families out of abject poverty and transforming whole villages. To date, we have adopted 87 villages across North Darfur. Over 370,000 people whose lives have been improved long term in one of the most remote and inaccessible regions of the world, where violence is still a daily hazard on the walk to water.
It’s day 5 of our Advent Calendar and we will be donating £100 to the charity “Tools with a Mission“.
Their mission is to collect unwanted tools, refurbish them, sort them into trade kits and send them across the world for livelihood creation. They send around 20 containers filled with over 300 tonnes of tools every year.
They support local people supporting their own communities through livelihood creating projects. They believe there is dignity through work and the ability to provide for yourself and your family. They believe entire communities can be transformed through training and the provision of tool kits and equipment.
Last year the club arrange a tool collection in Southwold and collected over half a tonne of unwanted tools for TWAM. In addition to the donation we hope to carry out another collection in 2018.
The Rotary Club of Southwold and District carries out various fund-raising activities in the community.
Last year we donated nearly £12000 and supported 30 charities, organisations and individuals. Your donations will help us to continue this work. Thank you.
