2011 Spring Newsletter

Read our latest newsletter here

Building Commences at House of Joshua

At long last, after more than two years of planning, fund-raising and applying for permits building work is properly under way on the House of Joshua site. When complete the house will provide a secure and loving home for up to 28 orphaned and abandoned children.

We have just donated £10,000 to the Lifenet Children's Foundation (the Philippines charity responsible for building and running the home) to pay for the foundations. In all the first phase of construction will cost about £40,000, of which we have raised just over half. If you would like to donate please click on the Paypal button on this site.

 Digging foundation holes by hand

 Steel reinforcing rods tie support pillars into the foundations

 Wooden scaffolding shows the size of the building 

and will support shuttering whilst the support pillars are formed

Making up the steel rebars that will form the cores of the support pillars

Concrete 'Hollow Blocks' will infill between the pillars to form the walls of the house.

Still Stuck With Tax Exemption

Following our previous posting  ( A Strong Piece of Paper) we have submitted all the relevant paperwork to the Philippines Department of Finance only to be told that, although we have the endorsement of the Bureau of Customs, without also the endorsement of either the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development) or NEDA (National Economic Development Agency) there is no legal basis to grant our request for tax exemption on the shipment of tools and medical equipment that would bring help and relief to many thousands of Filipinos trapped in a cycle of  poverty.

Unfortunately DSWD and NEDA cannot endorse our application because not all our beneficiaries / aid recipients fit the exact criteria for one or the other of these agencies (i.e. NEDA doesn't deal with charities and DSWD doesn't deal with District Health Centres). We fall between the two stools!

What can we do? Is there nobody who can make this possible? Must the poor always remain poor or will someone intervene on their behalf?

It seems that piece of paper is as strong as ever, and just as elusive!

A Very Strong Piece of Paper

Few of us would describe paper as being strong but just one piece of paper is sufficient to hold up a 40ft shipping container and almost 8 tons of much needed medical equipment (ranging from syringes and needles up to nebulisers, autoclaves, wheel-chairs, hospital beds even a kidney dialysis machine), various tools and educational resources that we are trying to ship to the Philippines to support the work of several Barangay (district) health centres, a community hospital, a school for children with disabilities, a church that works in poor communities and two organisations working with street children.

That particular piece of paper is the permission to import this vital equipment into the Philippines without us or our beneficiaries incurring substantial charges for VAT and Import Duties on the shipment that, quite simply, neither we nor they can afford to pay. And we cannot dispatch the container until we get it.

We have been trying to obtain this exemption certificate since last October and we have had to delay the shipment three times as a consequence. We have incurred over £300 in fees to get the documentation necessary to support our application for duty exemption 'legalised' by a Notary Public, The Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the Philippines Embassy in London - all of this in order that we can give away a FREE gift to help the poor and needy - a gift that will improve the lives of anything up to 300,000 people.

One of several nebulisers, a stretcher and walking aids

for children with disabilites - all waiting for shipment.

We had a lot of fun on Friday taking a lesson with year five at Horringer Court Middle School - talking about life for street children in the Philippines and our plans for the House of Joshua children's home.

They asked a lot of really good questions about the implications of living rough on the streets in poverty as well as about bugs, creepy-crawlies, snakes and the like!

This forms part of an ongoing plan to develop cultural links between the school and the House of Joshua so that the children can learn about life in other countries. It will also form part of the middle school's enterprise project - to raise money for charitable causes.

Later in the day the children did some more work based on our talk, which they were able to share with parents who came into the school in the afternoon.

Here's a couple of the beautiful posters that they made (the pictures are a bit fuzzy as they were taken on a mobile phone).

If anybody else in the Bury St Edmunds area would like us to do a talk please give us a ring or send us an email

An Amazing Year- Ahead and Behind

What an amazing year 2010 turned out to be!

We have just had our annual general meeting. The Trustees Annual Report made exciting reading. During 2010 our income went up by an astonishing 73%. Grants made to various beneficiaries, including our school sponsorship program, were up by about 10% and over £12,000 has been set aside for building the 'House of Joshua' children's home (construction work is due to begin in earnest on this project very shortly).

The first of our University Students graduated in 2010 and we have another two due to graduate this March. A further four students are currently engaged on university degree courses, with several more younger children also able to attend school thanks to their generous sponsors.

We were able to supply books, computers tools and medical equipment that enabled a significant number of people to learn new skills, find new ways of earning a living and improve their health. Many lives have been changed as a result.

None of this would have been possible without the help of our many friends and supporters. A huge thank you to every single one of you!

If 2010 was an amazing year 2011 looks to be even more so, particularly with the dispatch of a 40 foot ships container of medical aid bound for Cagayan De Oro City and Camiguin Island Province in early March. We anticipate that the equipment we are supplying will directly impact the lives of many thousands of people as we help them to access affordable medical care and improve the general health of the local inhabitants.

We hope and pray that this container will be the first of many.

You can read the 2010 Trustees Annual Report here

Crossing Biscay for the House of Joshua

In May this year one of our trustees, Andy Conroy, is planning to sail across the notoriously dangerous Bay of Biscay in a 45 foot yacht, in company with friends, to raise funds for the House of Joshua building project.

If you would like to sponsor Andy, or just to find our more about his trip please click on this link.

BISCAY OR BUST

There's a competition too - correctly guess how many miles for the voyage and you could win a prize.

Andy looks pensive during crew training session.

An awful lot of ropes to learn (and pull).

Yacht White Sands in harbour

Autumn Newsletter

Currying Favour

Thank you to the members of the 'G4G' House-Group at Horringer Court Community Church Bury St Edmunds who donated over £100 from a curry evening to raise money for the House of Joshua.

It all started when one of the group members got a whiff of a curry cooked by TCRCT Trustee, Andy Conroy and said ' That smells delicious, I'd pay money for that!'

Before you could say 'Madhur Jaffrey' a group social event was organised and 14 diners were treated to 5 different curry dishes and all the usual accompaniments.

Congrats and Thanks

Guests pin money to the dancing newly weds

Congratulations and a huge vote of thanks to John and Sarah Lloyd, married on Saturday 31st July.

Instead of having gifts at their wedding John and Sarah asked their guests to contribute to our House of Joshua fund-raising appeal through a 'money dance (A Filipino tradition where guests pin money to the bride and groom during their first dance).

With Gift Aid tax rebates over £1500 was raised to take the building program forward. Thank you to everyone, and especially the newly weds, for their incredible generosity.