Category Archives: Charities

Refugee aid in northern France at risk as Choose Love ends funding

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Celebrity-backed funder pulls support from seven frontline charities helping migrants as winter approaches

Seven charities working to provide food, water, blankets and other essential aid to refugees in northern France have warned that they might have to stop their work because celebrity-backed funder Choose Love is ending its financial support.

The charities provide a lifeline to refugees who are hoping to seek sanctuary in the UK, often attempting Channel crossings by small boats. The deteriorating weather as winter approaches makes living conditions for the estimated 2,000 migrants in Calais, who are destitute and often forced to sleep outside, more precarious.

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Owners offload dogs bought in lockdown by pretending they are strays

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Rescue centres say they are seeing more and more pets their owners are now too busy to look after

People are pretending that dogs they acquired during lockdown are strays so that rescue centres take them in, after failing to sell them online, animal rescue charities and shelters have warned.

Figures from March revealed that more than 3.2m pets were bought by UK households during lockdown. Since Covid restrictions were lifted and people have started to return to the office, charities have reported a growing trend of people abandoning their pandemic pets as they no longer have as much time for them.

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Guardian angel: a Syrian feeding the homeless who dreams of his own street food van

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In our new column, in which we make nice things happen for nice people, Khaled Wakkaa starts to turn his passion into a livelihood

In a Lebanese hospital in 2015, Khaled Wakkaa watched as his wife Dalal grew weaker. She was emaciated and jaundiced. In the two years since they had fled the Syrian civil war, they’d lived on the brink, sleeping on the street or on friends’ floors. “Me and my wife had started to die,” he says. The hospital wanted $500 for medical bills. Wakkaa left her in the waiting room and went begging at mosques and churches. Nobody would help.

Some friends posted about his situation on Facebook. Fellow Syrian refugees in Beirut started calling. “I received phone calls from people who don’t have money,” he says. “But they wanted to help me.” They gave him everything they’d managed to scrounge together: $200. At first, the hospital refused to accept the smaller amount, but relented after much pleading, and Dalal was admitted.

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Guardian angel: a Hackney hero takes his team bowling

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In our new column, in which we make nice things happen for nice people, we meet Marvin Birch, who turned his life around – and now spreads the community love


Marvin Birch has lived on the Kingsmead estate in Hackney his entire life. It’s never had a good reputation. There was a terrible murder of a young boy there in 1985; in 1994 a newspaper article wrote the place off as “one of the most notorious estates in east London”. But Birch has always found it a place of community. “It’s a family,” he says. “When people who don’t live on an estate come to visit they always comment on how everyone is together: ‘You can go out of your house and kids are playing.’” That’s what inspired him, as an adult, to make a difference for children growing up there today.

As a teenager, Birch, now 26, was a prisoner of geography, subject to restrictions that made the simple act of visiting a supermarket a few roads away a life-threatening gauntlet. “There were a lot of postcode wars,” he says. He couldn’t walk a mile in either direction without being targeted. At the time, a member of his family was a gang member, which put entire swathes of Hackney off limits.

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Prince Charles ‘cash-for-honours’ scandal grows with fresh allegations

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Prince reportedly ‘met at least nine times’ with William Bortrick, the alleged fixer at heart of the claims

Clarence House is facing fresh questions over further revelations in the royal “cash for honours” scandal involving middlemen who reportedly took cuts for setting up meetings between wealthy donors and the Prince of Wales.

Prince Charles “met at least nine times” with William Bortrick, the alleged fixer at the heart of the claims, who is said to have received thousands of pounds to secure an honour for a Saudi billionaire and brokered a personal thank-you letter from Charles to a Russian donor, the Sunday Times reported.

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‘Chaotic’ UK response criticised as Afghan babies wait for milk and donations turned away

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Volunteers ‘operating blind’ about refugees’ needs, while hotels left with no staff to distribute aid

The government’s response towards families evacuated from Afghanistan to Britain has been “chaotic and uncoordinated”, hampering volunteers’ efforts to help, charities have said.

One hotel where 50 babies were in quarantine with their families after fleeing the Taliban had no formula milk, they said. In other hotels, supplies of clothes, toiletries and nappies donated by the public were turned away by managers who had no staff to distribute them.

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Prince Charles’s former aide steps down as charity boss amid conduct inquiry

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Michael Fawcett, who was CEO of Prince’s Foundation, faces claims about honour for a Saudi businessman

A former aide to the Prince of Wales has stepped down temporarily from his role as a charity boss while an investigation into allegations about his conduct takes place.

Michael Fawcett, a former assistant valet to Charles, has stepped down as chief executive of the Prince’s Foundation amid claims about an honour relating to Saudi businessman Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz.

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‘A kick in the teeth’: British mothers and pregnant women fear return to workplace

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Companies recalling staff this month have been accused of not offering flexitime and failing to protect employees

Before the pandemic, every morning and night was a cycle of stress and rushing around for single mother Emma Woodburn, getting her two young sons to and from school, childcare before and after work and staying on top of housework.

But when, 18 months ago, the 39-year-old from Lancashire was told by her employer she could work from home, everything changed. “It was like a weight was lifted. It was less rush in the morning. I could put the washing on throughout the day and hang it out on my dinner break. It just felt easier.”

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RNLI hits out at ‘migrant taxi service’ accusations

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Lifeboat charity says it is its moral and legal duty to rescue people at risk of dying as they cross Channel

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has hit out at accusations it is operating a “migrant taxi service” by rescuing people at risk of dying in the water as they cross the Channel in small boats, which the charity says is its moral and legal duty.

Responding to accusations from Nigel Farage that it is facilitating illegal immigration, the volunteer lifeboat charity said it was “very proud” of its humanitarian work and it would continue to respond to coastguard callouts to rescue at-risk Channel migrants in line with its legal duty under international maritime law.

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Where UK aid cuts bite deepest – stories from the sharp end

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As women and children lose out on programmes that could change their lives, Britain’s reputation has been diminished

Bukola Onyishi was delighted when she found out that the British government was going to help her realise a dream in one of the poorest parts of Nigeria. With a grant agreement that was meant to last for three years, she was finally going to be able to launch a female empowerment programme for the women of Bauchi state in the country’s north-east, many of whom had fled the militant Islamist group Boko Haram and were now living in abject poverty in camps for the internally displaced.

“The grant made us very happy,” says Onyishi, country director for Women for Women International. “[Bauchi] was the right place to be.” Setting it up was not easy: Onyishi and her colleagues had a job to persuade community elders of the project’s value, encountering deep-seated patriarchal beliefs that surprised even her in their obstinacy. But they came round in the end, and the first 12-month empowerment programme began, teaching 1,200 carefully selected women about everything from their basic human rights to numeracy and business skills.

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EU ‘has blood on its hands’, say activists calling for border agency’s abolition

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Coalition of rights groups demanding Frontex be defunded claim EU policies have ‘killed over 40,555 people since 1993’

Activists, captains of rescue ships and about 80 human rights organisations across the world have launched an international campaign calling for the European border agency to be defunded and dismantled.

In an open letter sent last week to the European Commission, the Council of the EU and the European parliament, the campaign coalition highlighted the “illegal and inhumane practices” of the EU border agency, Frontex, which is accused of having promoted and enforced violent policies against migrants.

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‘It’s not easy’: seven working parents around the world – photo essay

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Photographers Linda Bournane Engelberth and Valentina Sinis document the lives of working parents from Botswana to the UK for Unicef

If investing in family-friendly policies is good for business, then many companies are missing a trick. Giving parents and families adequate time, resources and services to care for children, while staying in their jobs and improving their skills and productivity, pays off according to employers. But for many, in all parts of the world, paid parental leave and childcare are not a reality. And that can compromise the first critical years of life – a time when the combination of the right nourishment, environment and love can strengthen a developing brain and give a baby the best start.

Evidence suggests family-friendly policies pay off in healthier, better-educated children and greater gender equality, and are linked to better productivity and the ability to attract and retain workers. Momentum for change is growing with an increasing number of businesses beginning to see the value.

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UK aid cuts to Bangladesh NGO a ‘gut punch’, says charity head

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Withdrawal from long-term partnership catastrophic, says Brac, affecting women and girls’ education and those in extreme poverty

The UK government’s funding cuts to the world’s largest international non-governmental organisation are a “gut punch” after a successful 10-year £450m partnership, according to a director.

Asif Saleh, executive director of Brac Bangladesh, said the cuts will leave hundreds of thousands of girls without an education, millions of women and girls without access to family planning and hundreds of thousands of people in extreme poverty without support.

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Voluntourism: new book explores how volunteer trips harm rather than help

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‘Don’t do as we did,’ says Pippa Biddle, who highlights colonial structure of industry where unqualified Western tourists pay to volunteer abroad

Seven years ago, Pippa Biddle wrote a blog post about volunteering abroad. She recounted her struggles speaking Spanish to children living with HIV in the Dominican Republic and how local people in Tanzania would spend all night redoing the construction work she and her classmates had done poorly.

“Taking part in international aid where you aren’t particularly helpful is not benign,” Biddle wrote. “It’s detrimental.”

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‘Sponsor a child’ schemes attacked for perpetuating racist attitudes

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Using individual children to ‘sell’ schemes to rich donors is similar to ‘poverty porn’ images of past, say experts, as calls grow to decolonise aid

International child sponsorship schemes have come under attack for perpetuating racist thinking, as an apology by a charity to thousands of children in Sri Lanka has sparked a debate over the money-raising schemes.

Plan International last week admitted it had made “mistakes” over its exit from Sri Lanka in 2020, following criticism from donors and former employees that it had failed 20,000 vulnerable children in the country.

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WHO and global faith leaders call for fair access to Covid vaccines

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Declaration warns that the world is at a turning point in saving poorer countries from devastation

Global faith leaders and senior health and humanitarian figures are calling on countries to ensure the equitable distribution of Covid vaccines, warning that the world is “at a turning point”.

The signatories of an international declaration include Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization; Henrietta Fore, executive director of Unicef, the UN’s children’s agency; Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross; Filippo Grandi, United Nations high commissioner for refugees; Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the global Anglican church; Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of al-Azhar; and Christian and Jewish leaders.

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Plan International accused of abandoning children in Sri Lanka exit

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Children’s charity faces claims it failed vulnerable children and misled donors after shutting down activities in the country

One of the world’s largest children’s rights charities has admitted it “made a number of mistakes” when it left Sri Lanka abruptly last year, amid accusations it had misled the public and donors and failed 20,000 vulnerable children in the country.

Former employees and provincial governors who spoke to the Guardian described Plan International’s exit as “irresponsible”, “cynical and indefensible”.

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UK aid cuts will put tens of thousands of children at risk of famine, says charity

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Save the Children’s analysis finds Britain will spend 80% less on nutrition abroad this year, as hunger levels rise around the world

Britain is set to spend 80% less on helping feed children in poorer nations than before the pandemic, according to a charity’s analysis.

Save the Children said the British government will spend less than £26m this year on vital nutrition services in developing countries, a drop of more than three-quarters from 2019. The estimate of aid cuts to nutrition comes after UN agencies called for urgent action to avert famine in 20 countries including Yemen, South Sudan and northern Nigeria.

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UK cuts grants for small aid charities to save ‘less than cost of No 10 press room’

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Hospital in Zanzibar and support for child workers in Bangladesh among approved projects to miss out as £2.1m of funding cancelled

The UK has scrapped three rounds of grants to small international development charities, prompting fury that it has wiped out funding for 42 projects around the world to save “less than the [£2.6m] cost of the Downing Street press room”.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) told charities last week that rounds six, seven and eight of the Small Charities Challenge Fund (SCCF) would not go ahead because of aid cuts, cancelling in total about £2.1m of funds earmarked for new and future programmes, including many that had been approved.

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DRC aid agencies appeal to UK Foreign Office to suspend ‘disastrous’ cuts

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Fears of 60% reduction in budget for country where 27.3m said to be experiencing acute food insecurity

A consortium of 19 aid agencies operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo has issued a last-minute appeal to the UK Foreign Office to suspend planned aid cuts to the country, where a third of the population faces acute food insecurity.

The Foreign Office, the second largest provider of aid to the war-torn country, has told aid agencies that cuts are very likely. Although the size of them is not yet agreed, one report has suggested a 60% reduction in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office budget for the country. The FCDO’s aid programme for Congo was worth £180m in 2019.

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