The Charities
At this stage in the project, we are planning to raise money for a charity called Practical Action that undertakes a lot of work in developing countries. Their philosophy is to ‘help people to help themselves’ i.e. they will provide training and equipment to help people improve their lifestyles and set up their own businesses.
Practical Action was chosen as a beneficiary of the Sail Aid Challenge for a number of reasons:
• Practical Action specialises in introducing renewable and sustainable energy projects to projects in developing countries, therefore they will be able to give advice and information on how the energy systems can be implemented.
• Rachael Varnish from Red Circle previously worked for Practical Action on an administrative and voluntary event management basis. She is fully aware of the projects operated by the charity and knows the team of people behind them.
• Practical Action is a member of Bond and was a very active member of the Make Poverty History campaign (MPH). The charity took a large group of people up to Edinburgh to take part in the MPH rally on 2nd July 2006.
• The Sail Aid team strongly supports the work undertaken by Practical Action and would like to help fund their future work.
Our Goal
We plan to build up a special fund to purchase the following energy generating equipment:
• Micro Hydro Farms
•
Solar Lanterns
•
Solar Panels
•
Windmills
This equipment will be distributed and installed into small communities in developing countries by Practical Action. The Sail Aid charity will be mostly run by volunteers and therefore does not have large overheads. This will guarantee that approximately 95% of all money raised will go directly to those who need it.
To learn more about the energy projects, please log onto www.practicalaction.org and click on the ‘Energy’ link.