Charitable Trusts and Foundations

Plan UK works with a wide range of trusts and foundations to help children, their families and communities realise their full potential and grow up happy and healthy.

Our projects cover issues such as safe water, education, health and livelihoods but in all situations our focus remains the same: children.

Trusts and foundations often play a vital role through providing support for these long-term projects and so improving the lives of thousands of people every year.

Plan UK values the support of organisations such as the Pears Foundation, who, with a British businessman and the Government of Honduras, are helping to improve the quality of education for thousands of children.

The Band Aid Trust has also supported several aspects of our work, for instance through improving water and sanitation for children in Burkina Faso. However the support of many smaller organisations is equally important to the story of improving children's conditions, rights and opportunities.

Plan UK's range of work seeks to make the difference that children themselves have said is most important, wherever we work. We are more than happy to identify projects for funding and examples of valuable project work with organisations requiring specific projects are detailed below.

The Pears Foundation
The Freemason's Grand Charity
The Sir Halley Stewart Trust
The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation
The Band Aid Trust
Contact us

The Pears Foundation

Children at lunchtime, in their new school, Lempira

A joint initiative between the Government of Honduras, a British businessman, and The Pears Foundation co-ordinated by Plan International, this venture will improve the quality of learning for school children in Honduras.

Eighty per cent of the amount pledged by The Pears Foundation has been matched by the Government of Honduras, almost doubling the value of their donation and the number of children who will benefit from this project.

The Department of Lempira is one of the most isolated and poorest regions of Honduras, where children attend over-crowded, dilapidated schools, with poorly trained teachers and high levels of malnutrition.

'Our Vision': children describe what they want from their schools

Education is a crucial factor for social and economic development and through a combination of infrastructure and training elements, this project aims to implement a comprehensive education programme benefiting over 6,000 children.

The project will support 9 pre-schools and 44 primary schools, and involve training teachers and the reconstruction and renovation of infrastructure of 53 schools in Lempira.

Children will have safe, stimulating learning environments; overcrowding will be reduced as more schools are constructed; children will benefit from nutritious diets and live healthier lives, and the quality of teaching will be improved.

The project will promote a curriculum which is closely related to the lives of the children involved and their physical, community and family environment. For example, relevant learning materials such as sketches of villages, maps and agricultural timetables will be used.

One of the new sanitary blocks in La Libertad

Through school governments and the promotion of democratic, civil and social values, children will play an active role in decision making and organisation. In addition, through ensuring a full participatory approach and supporting community members to build relationships with their local and national governments, this project aims not only to ensure access to education for over 6,000 children but also to build sustainable links which will help promote further development in the future.

We will be measuring the success of this project in the following ways:

a) Short term output, for example, how many schools and latrines have been built and how many teachers have been trained, the number of letters/meetings between community leaders and the local authorities.

b) Medium term outcomes, for example the number of children now receiving an education, the improvements in the health of children, the quality of the teachers, the modification or creation of commitments from the local education authorities.

c) Long term impact, looking at indicators such a child mortality rates and literacy rates and the benefits of any positive developments in government action or policy. Impact is something Plan has an influence over rather than claims total credit for, as this will always be shaped by other contributing factors.

The Freemason's Grand Charity

Children receiving their health check-up

The Freemason's Grand Charity is currently supporting communities in 10 fishing villages in the Villapuram area of Tamil Nadu whose livelihoods were destroyed during the tsunami.

The project includes ensuring men have the boats and nets they need to go back to work, supports women to set up self-help groups which seek income-generation opportunities and helps the communities set up childcare centres.

Fifty-eight boats, engines and nets were initially purchased, six child-care centres have been set up and running and in the past year health check-ups have been given to 319 girls and 345 boys aged two to five years old while 162 school age children in the target villages were vaccinated against brain fever/meningitis/encephalitis.

Ante-natal care was provided to 37 expectant mothers, and post-natal care to 35 new mothers and 1,365 children. 34 women's self-help groups have been set up and health camps and tuition centres are now established. Having initially helping set up the redevelopment of the communities, the project is now building on the redevelopment to ensure a sustainable future for the children and their families.

The Sir Halley Stewart Trust

The Sir Halley Stewart Trust is helping to provide education and safe, clean water for schools in the Kourittenga Province in Burkina Faso.

This holistic project not only helps provide classrooms, furniture and equipment but also ensures dramatically improved sanitation through new toilet blocks, boreholes which provide a safe and reliable source of water and hygiene and sanitation training, helping achieve long term results in reducing water borne diseases and infections.

A vegetable garden and canteen provides nutrition and food security for the children. The project is benefiting over 400 school children in each year and is giving a brighter future for many more generations to come.

The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation

The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation is currently supporting an ecosystem management and reforestation project in Senegal, helping the community plant and manage heavily degraded areas to help prevent the effects of climate related disasters and provide a sustainable income from fruits and a sustainable supply of firewood for the community to cook with.

The Band Aid Trust

The Band Aid Trust has supported the building of a school in a slum area of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The construction of a new school block will enable a further 3000 children to attend this successful but woefully overcrowded school. Currently there are nearly 7,000 children living in Addisketema and only 1,034 have access to education.

A parent-teacher association member gives an impression of the difference a project like this can make: "Had it not been to the generosity of Plan Ethiopia and our donor in the UK it would have been impossible to think of having a four-storey building in such a slum area around Markato".

Contact

If you would like more information on how your trust can work with Plan please contact our Trust Team on 0300 777 9777.