We are pleased that the London Value Investor Conference 2023 supported Justice Defenders with a total contribution of over $50,000. Our contribution was generously match-funded by The Peter Cundill Foundation, doubling the size of the contribution.
Justice Defenders equips incarcerated people and prison officers to change the course of justice. We’ve trained more than 400 paralegals and 50 law graduates within defenceless communities to provide legal services for themselves and others, because everyone deserves a fair hearing. We serve all people in prison no matter their sentence, religion, background, race, or gender. We believe every person’s life is fundamentally valuable – their past need not define their future.
Justice Defenders elevates people with lived experience of injustice to be the driving force of criminal justice reform. We challenge mandatory death sentences and support the effective operation of courts, bringing them online at the start of the pandemic. Speaking from within prisons directly to the world’s most high-profile media (including The Times, The Telegraph, The BBC and CNN) to rewrite the global narrative. We believe the law is here to serve all of us.
Empowering African Women Through Construction
We are pleased that the London Value Investor Conference raised a total of £20,000 for Buildher. This amount was generously match-funded by The Peter Cundill Foundation, doubling the size of the contribution.
VISION:
We work to see women across Kenya actively contribute towards urban development to create safe, inclusive, resilient and sustainable cities. We work on promoting urban development with women, for women, by women.
MISSION:
We equip women in Kenya with accredited construction and manufacturing skills leading to greater financial prosperity, changing male attitudes and promoting gender equality within the construction industry.
We are pleased that the London Value Investor Conference raised a total of £24,313 for Greenhouse Sports. Greenhouse was founded in 2002 when our Chief Executive, Michael de Giorgio, set up a sports coaching pilot to give young people on a local housing estate something positive to do in the school holidays.
Using the sports facilities at St Paul’s School, an independent school in West London, the pilot programme helped troubled teenagers and was supported by the Metropolitan Police. It was so successful and in demand that it continued over the following years and merged with similar charity, Table Tennis for Kids (TTK).
Mike quickly realised that rather than transporting young people from their own neighbourhoods to private schools in more affluent areas, he needed to bring sport to young people in their own communities – our current unique model of running full-time school sports programmes was born! In 2004, the ‘Greenhouse Schools Project’ moved into schools, with two full-time table tennis programmes and weekend/holiday programmes at eight locations.
From then Greenhouse has continued to grow, thanks to the generosity of our supporters who share our belief in the value of providing opportunities and role models for all young people.
We are pleased that the Conference raised a total of £25,015 for Child & Youth Finance International. We would like to thank all conference participants for making this support possible.
Child and Youth Finance International (CYFI) works to provide children and youth around the world with access to financial services, enhance their awareness of economic rights, and empower them to build their assets, invest in their future, and ultimately break the cycle of poverty. Poverty is a global challenge. It has so many enduring effects on people, their communities and their countries.
CYFI sees that the key to fighting poverty is for people to learn how to manage and handle money, and have the confidence, knowledge and responsibility to spend and earn it responsibly. This must start from childhood. So CYFI has partnered with thousands of organizations in 132 countries around the world – from banks, to governments, to NGOs, to academics – you name it! Together, they work to create policies and programs that make children and youth able to learn about money, have access to a bank account, develop entrepreneurial skills and, most importantly, to believe in themselves.
CYFI Achievements
• Ranked number 45 in NGO Advisor’s Top 500 NGOs in the world
• To date, the Child and Youth Finance Movement has reached 36 million children and youth worldwide
• CYFI listed in the 2015 Top 100 NGOs list published by Global Geneva
• Young people included in 2015 G20 priorities for Financial Inclusion (CYFI became an Affiliated Member to the GPFI, the inclusive platform for all G20 countries)
• Global Money Week 2015 reached 5.6 million children in 124 countries with over 3000 activities
• Global Money Week 2014 reached 3 million children in 118 countries with over 2000 activities CYFI’s 2014 High-Level Stakeholder’s Meeting, “A Chance for Change: Child & Youth Finance and the Post-2015 Agenda”, held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York
• Invited by NASDAQ for the Opening Bell, to mark the launch of Global Money Weeks 2012 & 2013
• Semi-finalist of 2012 Mexico G20 Financial Inclusion Challenge: Innovative Solutions for Unlocking Access in the G20 competition (CYFI’s Schoolbank among the top 12 of 257 entries, from 62 countries) Charitable Support
We are pleased that the Conference raised a total of £27,025 for the Children’s Division of Human Rights Watch.
For more than two decades, the Children’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch has worked to expose and curb some of the most serious human rights violations against children, who are among the most vulnerable to violence, exploitation, and abuse. We have had significant influence by conducting in-depth research, broad media outreach, and high-level advocacy aimed at bringing attention to children’s rights and pushing at the national, regional, and international levels for lasting changes that will improve the lives of children worldwide.
We focus on core issues on which we have built expertise over many years and where we feel that we can make a real difference. These issues include eliminating the use of child soldiers, keeping children out of the most dangerous forms of child labor, ensuring that all children have access to education, protecting schools from being attacked during war, creating a fairer system for children accused of crimes, and increasing protections for unaccompanied migrant children. To uncover, document, and challenge human rights abuses, we begin by conducting meticulous on-site investigations. Our researchers speak to victims, witnesses, victims’ families, local activists, government officials, and others to assemble a complete and accurate picture of human rights practices and policies that apply to children in a particular country. We then release reports, multimedia, and other materials to publicize the findings, and launch intensive advocacy campaigns to pressure abusers to respect rights. Our experts share their findings with governments and develop detailed recommendations for rights-respecting reform.
Our work has led to meaningful change. For example, we spearheaded the international campaign to ban the use of child soldiers, resulting in a treaty that 162 countries have now ratified. We have investigated this practice in over 15 countries around the globe, using our findings to press governments to stop recruiting children and working with courts to hold military leaders accountable. When we took up this issue, children were serving in armed conflict in 30 countries. Today, that number is 18.
As one of the leading human rights organization in the world, Human Rights Watch is an independent, international organization that works as part of a vibrant movement to uphold human dignity and advance the cause of human rights for all. For more information about the Children’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, please visit https://www.hrw.org/topic/childrens-rights.
We are pleased that the Conference raised a total of £35,150 for Child Bereavement UK, which supports families and educates professionals when a baby or child of any age dies or is dying, or when a child is facing bereavement.
Every day CBUK deals with something that many people find too unbearable to contemplate – the untimely deaths of parents and children. Deaths that can shatter lives and leave sheer devastation in their wake. It’s human nature for us to want to distance ourselves from this as something that happens to other people, but every year child bereavement is experienced by thousands of families in the UK; over 9000 babies and children die each year, and every 22 minutes a parent dies leaving dependent children.
Child Bereavement UK is here to guide families through the long and difficult journey of grief. We are here to help them find the support they need, wherever they are in their journey and for as long as they need it.
2015 marks our 21st year of supporting bereaved children, young people and families and training the professionals who come into contact with bereaved families during the course of their work. The demand for our services is increasing. Last year we supported 907 children and adults within 395 families; and trained 5,795 professionals nationwide. Our web site received 500,000 visits and our national support and information helpline received nearly 2,000 calls.
In recent years, we have begun to plug the gaps that exist in bereavement services across the country by establishing a number of regional bereavement services; we now offer face-to-face support for families in Buckinghamshire, Milton Keynes, East and West London, Cheshire and Cumbria.
Our ambition is to significantly increase the bereavement support we offer across the UK to reach many more children, young people and families. We will focus on areas where no bereavement services exist, and in particular, areas of economic deprivation. We also aim to expand our training to reach many more professionals in schools, healthcare and other sectors,so that they can better understand and meet the needs of grieving families.
To find out more information about Child Bereavement UK visit www.childbereavementuk.org
We are pleased that the Conference raised a total of £33,025 for School Aid. Established in 1998 School Aid improves the quality of education in Africa by redistributing teaching and learning materials to African schools in disadvantaged communities.
Our priority countries are Tanzania, South Africa, Lesotho, and Malawi. We work where we have local volunteers and partners on the ground to ensure the resources requested reach their destination. In total 80 volunteers, 1363 schools and partners in the UK and Africa help to identify and supply each school’s needs for teaching and learning resources.
Each year we distribute more than 79,000 books to around 100 African schools, improving the literacy skills, educational opportunities and employment prospects of 50,000+ children. Our aim is to increase our reach and impact year on year.
Our vision is an Africa where all schools are self- sustaining and the teaching and learning environment enables students to fulfil their potential, preparing young African to meet the developmental, social and economic needs of their country.
School Aid is a registered charity in South Africa and the UK. Please visit our website for further details.
We are pleased that the Conference raised a total of £34,292.04 for Place2Be. Place2Be is the leading UK provider of school-based emotional and mental health services. Founded in 1994, Place2Be works in over 170 schools reaching 64,000 children and their families, mostly in areas of high deprivation. The award-winning charity seeks to improve the prospects of children aged 4-14 years, by tackling the complex social issues that result in educational disadvantage.
Research has shown that 80% of children showing behavioural problems at the age of five go on to develop more serious forms of anti-social behaviour. Early intervention within a school environment with very young children offers the best and most cost-effective method of improving their lives by helping them develop the resilience to cope with distress.
Place2Be’s accessible, non-stigmatising support effectively removes the emotional barriers to learning and prevents the downward spiral that can lead to low aspirations, poor educational achievement, truancy and exclusion from school. It helps improve children’s classroom learning and academic progress, providing them with brighter prospects and hopeful futures.
Because it is an integrated school-based service supporting children, parents, teachers and school staff, Place2Be becomes a trusted part of the school and the wider community. Its core services are delivered by its clinical staff and highly skilled Volunteer Counsellors. It measures and evaluates the outcomes of its work, demonstrating the positive impact of its interventions. It delivers value for money: an assessment of the economic impact of Place2Be’s services indicated that for every £1 spent on early intervention support, there is a return on investment of £6 in terms of savings to society.
Benita Refson, OBE is Chief Executive and Founding Trustee at Place2be and addressed delegates to talk about the important work the charity does.
© Value Invest 2021