ANY COLOUR YOU LIKE (As Long As It Is PINK) - showing our feminine side

Intended originally as a home for boys, The House of Joshua children's home has been up an running for just over two years now.

It opened in January 2013 with an initial intake of just 8 boys but is now home to 22 children who are permanently resident with us. Several others have passed though on their way, either to other facilities, or to being reunited with their families. There have also been a few who simply could not cope with the change of lifestyle, including the responsibilities that go with that, and have returned to living rough on the city streets.

In the last few months, out of necessity and for their protection, we have also taken in four girls; reorganising the bedrooms and dividing the top corridor in two to provide separate sleeping areas for boys and girls.

At present it costs around £25,000 a year to keep the home running, including feeding clothing, educating, and caring for the children. We also have to pay the utility bills and staff wages. Only about half the children currently have sponsors and, until we can recruit more sponsors, we need to dig into our reserves just to keep going. Whilst that is okay in the short term we cannot keep it up indefinitely without changing something. 

There is a huge need and we would like to be able to provide a long term home for more girls, but in order to do so we need to create a proper girls wing. There is still plenty of space in the main house to allow us to take 10-15 more children but it would be useful if we could build some separate staff quarters in order to free up additional rooms and facilitate that. We have the physical capacity to accommodate more children but the finances do not currently permit us to do so

We are therefore announcing a year of fundraising under the banner "PINK FOR A PURPOSE" to achieve the following objectives:-

• Bridge the current funding gap on running costs until sufficient new sponsors can be recruited.
• Alter / extend the building to provide proper staff quarters, including facilities for married couples.
• Fund the initial admittance of 10-15 extra children at £50 per head (clothes, shoes, school uniform, bedding, medical registration, school enrolment etc) on top of normal cost of accommodation 

Our initial fundraising target to do this is £25,000 and we are encouraging all our friends and supporters to engage in a variety of pink-themed fun events to generate interest and raise the profile of this campaign. You can do whatever you like as long as it is seriously PINK!

We have set up a separate  PINK FOR A PURPOSE Facebook Page where you can find some ideas and tips for organising events - it doesn't matter whether they are big or small; every Pound, Dollar, Pesos, Shekel, Euro or Yen will make a difference.We are encouraging participants to share the fun by uploading photos and videos from their fundraising events with the slogan "I/We've been pinked!" #pinkforapurpose. Please also "like" the Facebook page and share it with all your friends and family so that the message spreads out across the web as far as possible.

If you would like to support our PINK FOR A PURPOSE campaign you can make a donation via Paypal just by clicking on the button on this site - where there is the option to quote a reference or message the recipient please add the word PINKED so that we allocate the funds appropriately.

 however we do have to pay transaction charges on funds received via Paypal so, if you are considering donating a larger sum, please contact us first to see if their is a more cost effective option, such as direct bank transfer, cheque etcetera.

We are an extremely efficient charity - our operating costs are negligible because we have no paid staff and all our office facilities are donated free of charge - so every single penny (or whatever other unit of currency you use) will go straight into the appeal fund.

If this appeal takes off beyond our wildest dreams we will use any additional funds to pursue some, perhaps even all, of the following longer term objectives.

• Further improve facilities at the House of Joshua, including adding a filtering system to the water well to reduce the cost of drinking / domestic water supply, improving mosquito protection screening, expansion of educational facilities, ongoing maintenance and decoration.
• Recruit and continue to pay additional staff
• Purchase an additional vehicle to transport children to school and for other outings
• Acquire additional land to create a “House of Joshua Farm” and possibly allow building extension in the future.
• Expand our community outreach and education program "Growing Hope" which enables children from poor families to attend school and achieve their full potential. This program also provides support to their families.
• Establish a permanent "Endowment Fund" to put the long term funding of the House of Joshua onto a more secure footing so that, whilst we will always need our children to be sponsored, we will be able to cope with the inevitable peaks and troughs in our income stream.

#wevebeenpinked

The House of Joshua is a joint project with our sister charity in the Philippines, which both owns and manages the home, Lifenet Children's Foundation Inc. Out of necessity the House of Joshua  does have some paid staff who job is to care for the children.