The Trustees of EOS-UK Charity Fund held their AGM for the financial year ending 31 December 2022 on 7 March 2023 and were pleased to receive the following eagerly-awaited update from ECVW a few days before that.
The children and staff [at ECVW] are in good health, and doing well.
Our other donor-partners have been so understanding that they continued to provide ECVW help through the difficult times.
There was a major devastation of EWCV’s farm by another freak weather condition in July 2022. The unusual weather condition consisted of heavy rains, hailstone, flash floods and strong winds. The damage caused was far worse than that in July 2017. Some classrooms had also their roofs damaged. The pictures, including the short video of the floods, say it more than can be said in words.
EOS-UK Charity Fund receives sponsorship donations from its core supporters each month. The accumulated funds are transferred to Elshadai Wukro Children’s Village (EWCV) at the end of each quarter. The Charity also receives once-yearly donations from some of its supporters. These donations are split into four equal parts and one-quarter is included with each transfer.
The Charity’s honorary treasurer and honorary secretary have just returned from a private visit to Ethiopia and they naturally visited EWCV to see the achievements and challenges at the center for themselves. The centre is still recovering from the shock of the storms and floods in July 2017. The irony is that the rainfall after the freak weather was poor. What is more they have had some nights of hard frost which has made the recovery harder. Indeed the avocado saplings they planted in November with CultivAid’s drip irrigation system have been badly affected by the frost and Alem was saying that they might have to replace some of the plants. CultivAid from Israel is working in different parts of Ethiopia on hands on training in agricultural development emphasising “the need for agronomists to be in the field in order
These are photos of the EOS-UK Charity Fund’s very colourful ‘Thank you’ card. Some members of the trustees liked it so much that they even repurposed it as a ‘Seasons Greetings’ card for the festive season (at their own expense,it should be added). The card was designed by Gemma Guest from drawings by children at Elshadai Wukro Children’s Village, the centre EOS-UK Charity Fund Charity supports. When given a chance, the children at the centre show great resourcefulness and a hunger for learning. The card was presented as a Z-fold card with space for writing on the reverse side. The Charity is very grateful to Gemma for designing such a beautiful card and to Lesley and Phil Croydon (trustees members) who paid for the initial printing run.
After the storms and the floods have gone: EWCV’s farms are making a slow recovery after the devastation by storms and floods in July. The irony is that after the freak deluge, the rainfall in the area for the rest of the season was poor. As a family member remarked, this has been a season when the normal croaking sound of frogs that fills the air with the coming of the rains has been silent. The poor rains mean that EWCV will more than ever depend on its two boreholes for irrigation for its next harvest. EOS-UK Charity Fund has contributed £2897.00 towards the rehabilitation of farms. More than half of this sum came from the generous donation of friends and family members abroad, our supporters in the UK and members of the Charity’s trustees who all responded magnanimously to the publicity about the devastation of the farms.
Hailstorms and floods devastate the orphanage’s farms: In April’s update on this website, we reported how things were looking up for EWCV in its longterm desire to be as self-sufficient as possible, hopefully within the next five to ten years, by developing the productivity of its farms. Alas, we received the shocking news this week that the village’s farms have been devastated by hailstorms on 19 July followed by very heavy rains and severe floods that lasted two days. It sounds almost biblical, and the rains seem to have returned with a vengeance after the well-publicised drought affecting several countries in East Africa and The Horn due to the cyclical El Niño phenomenon.
Update on Elshadai Wukro Children’s Village (EWCV): One of our trustee members, Chris Cook paid a personal visit to EWCV in February with two of her friends, Sue and Helen, and was very pleased with what she saw. The children had never looked so well and she felt that the centre was generally better managed and run. The management at EWCV are more confident than ever at developing the centre to be more self-sufficient.
EOS-UK Charity Fund now a CIO: EOS-UK Charity Fund changed its structure in January from governance under the Small Charity Constitution to a Foundation Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) governed under the foundation ‘model’ constitution. The foundation model will make for a more efficient way of running the Charity’s business, but it also means that according to the constitution the only voting members are the Charity Trustees. However, the trustees recognise the importance of involving its supporters and has passed a bye-law, by-law 6/3/2017, on how this might be achieved.
January 2017: EOS-UK Charity Fund has transferred £4890.00 to its beneficiaries at Elshadai Wukro Children’s Village (EWCV) since it was founded six months ago in June 2016. The Charity was set up to try and mitigate the acute financial problem EWCV was facing. They are managing as best they can at the ‘village’ at present thanks to the income from their farm produce and the educational services they provide to the local community together with any help they receive from their friends and partners.
Aproval for Gift Aid: EOS-UK Charity Fund has been granted Gift-Aid approval by HMRC. The Charity is now working towards registering with the Charity Commission as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO).