On Wednesday the club had its first meeting at the Spencer Denny Centre which is the home of Age Concern Windsor.\u00a0 The meeting went well and it was agreed that this was a pleasant new venue.\u00a0 One great advantage is a huge table so that everyone can sit together and communicate and also see the large screen which makes Zoom very acceptable.<\/p>\n
Our speaker (via Zoom) was Jane Walker who is truly remarkable.\u00a0 21 years ago she was working for News International and uncertain as to whether her future lay in the print media industry.\u00a0 She took some time out and travelled to the Philippines to consider her options.\u00a0 She had heard about people living on rubbish dumps so asked a taxi driver to take her to one.\u00a0 In fact she went to one of the largest near to Manila and she was stunned and horrified to see hundreds if not thousands of children – many very young – and adults picking their way through the garbage created within the city.\u00a0 This was their way of life:\u00a0 finding plastic and metal which could be sold for recycling.\u00a0 The children had no hope of going to school as they were needed to help their families to quite literally earn enough to eat and survive.<\/p>\n
Jane decided that this was what she needed to change.\u00a0 Somehow she has built a team, and also a school, found work for parents and persuaded them that the future will be improved for entire families if the children are educated.\u00a0 One of the many cottage industries is using ring pulls to make beautiful items like handbags.\u00a0 Women learn a trade and earn money from the sales and are able to feed their children.\u00a0 A chicken farm was set up which not only provides eggs but enables families to work on the farm and develop skills.<\/p>\n
Thousands have been helped out of dire poverty and there are now many different projects – many related to living healthy lives but all aimed at getting children away from the dangerous and degrading work on the garbage dumps.\u00a0 Unfortunately covid has been a considerable disaster for the Philippines Community Charity as the country was locked down for two years and almost all the financial reserves have been used to keep children in education.\u00a0 Now that the pandemic is over it is a considerable task to rebuild the sponsors and grants that have been lost but Jane is working hard to rebuild.\u00a0 This unassuming woman has truly changed lives.<\/p>\n
To find out more about Jane and the Purple Community Fund visit https:\/\/www.p-c-f.org\/<\/p>\n
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On Wednesday the club had its first meeting at the Spencer Denny Centre which is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":309,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-club-news"],"yoast_head":"\n