This year started with a world financial crisis and a subsequent drop in our income. However, we were able to continue to support all our projects because of our prudent reserves policy but it has been a challenging year for us.
Despite the gloom of the recession and falling interest rates we held several highly successful fund raising events in the year and have more planned for 2010.
Our most successful event was the Challenge4Nepal fun day held at Castle Howard, Yorkshire for the second year running. We were again sponsored by S Harrison Developments and trustee Colin Culley organised an event that succeeded in raising over £14,000 to boost the charity’s income.
We also held another hugely successful restaurant evening in Bristol and started a recycling of cartridges and mobile phones scheme which is beginning to produce results. We also held a successful Golf Day which will be repeated in 2010. Our annual walking weekend was the best yet and the AGM gave rise to some fund raising ideas that we put in to practice later in the year.
We have also completed an overhaul of our website which is now being managed and updated regularly by trustee Charles Barton.
The children and adults at the Hope Centre in Kathmandu continue to thrive. Two of the older girls have successfully passed their final school exams and are planning to apply for university places in the near future. We will continue to support them but they will be encouraged to earn for themselves by working part time whilst studying. Two younger children have already been welcomed into the Hope Centre in place of the two older girls. One of the new children is severely disabled and will need long term medical care. We are already seeking sponsors for the new children.
The Hope Centre is now also equipped with solar lighting and a briquette cooker which are providing more sustainable and renewable energy sources.
The children at Hornbeam House are settled and achieving good results in their school exams. However, we need to secure accommodation for these children as the current home is only rented until October 2010. We have identified a suitable parcel of land in Kalimpong and agreed terms on which to acquire it. We plan to raise the funds for this by launching a major fund raising event using the power of the internet. This idea was mooted at our AGM in March and with the aid of generous volunteers we have launched a buy a brick scheme with its own separate website address www.newfuturesnepal.org/buyabrick.