Rianna's Fund Africa Trip

A team from Rianna's Fund travelled to Kenya and Uganda in February. During the packed ten-day trip, Steve, Jon, Tanya and John visited all the African projects supported by the charity, including Rianna's Furaha Children's Home in Kenya and Nakulabye Junior School in Kampala, Uganda. It was a great opportunity to catch up with our project partners and spend time with the many children Rianna's Fund has been able to support over the last six years. The team also saw a number of exciting new school/community projects, that we will be considering for future support.  Click here to read the trip blog. For information on all projects, click here.

Jo and Terry visit India

Jo and Terry arrived in India on the 17th of December. Read their Blog by clicking here.

Worldwide Charities Fair

Rianna's Fund.were at the Worldwide Charities Fair held at St George's Christian Centre, Ashtead, on Saturday 14th November. Thank you to everyone who supported the event and visited the Rianna's Fund display and stand. Proceeds from our sale of fairtrade goods will help to support the many under-privileged children targetted by our projects in Africa and India.

Way True Life

Rianna's Fund at Ashtead Village Day 

Good weather and a good crowd brought a steady stream of visitors to the Rianna's Fund stand at Ashtead's annual Village Day on 20th June. 

Rianna's Fund t-shirts and Fairtrade jewellry were on sale, and the raffle also proved popular.

A display showing some of projects the charity supports around the world attracted additional interest from the public, and it was great to see many local friends and supporters of Rianna's Fund during the day.

Next year's Ashtead Village Day is on Saturday 12th June 2010.

Rianna's Fund holds charity Golf Day

On June 1st 2009, Rianna's Fund held its inaugural charity Golf Day at Tyrrell's Wood Golf Club in Leatherhead. 18 teams played a 4-ball competition in glorious sunshine and enjoyed the complimentary specialty Ristretto coffee, Pimms and other refreshments on offer. A relaxed and enjoyable day was rounded off with a banquet dinner and a short presentation showing the projects Rianna's Fund is supporting, Afterwards, guests participated in a charity auction and raffle, followed by the presentation of a cup and trophies to the winning teams. Click here for more details and photos of the day.

Rianna's Fund take part in school's India Week

Debbie and Tanya were invited to participate in Clandon C of E Infant School's recent, India Week. An attentive group of pupils, aged between 4 and 7,  listened to a short presentation about Rianna's Fund that focused on our work with some of India's poorest children. Afterwards the pupils had great fun decorating dragonfly biscuits. After an enjoyable visit, the school generously offered to donate the retiring collection from their Easter service to Rianna's Fund.

Rianna's Fund at Screening

Information on the India projects Rianna's Fund is supporting was on display at The Theatre in Leatherhead to coincide with screenings of the hit film, Slumdog Millionaire. The aim was to build awareness of the very real and extensive poverty that exists in India's cities, highlighted by the film's story of three children from the slums of Mumbai. The exhibit showed some of the ways the neediest children are being supported to give them a better future and Tanya and Jo were on hand to chat with film-goers before and after performances. Our thanks to The Theatre's Ann Thorn for her assistance during the week, and to the ushers who organised bucket collections for Rianna's Fund.      

Runners for Rianna

For the third year running Rianna's Fund has benefited from the generous support of Ashtead Running Group and runners of the Trionium races arranged by ARG's Rob McCaffrey. The popular runs, which take place in and around the Surrey countryside, are spread across the calendar and regularly donate a portion of their proceeds to Rianna's Fund. Over the past three years some of our trustees and supporters have helped marshall several of the events, including the Knacker Cracker (in fancy dress!), the Ashtead 10k and this year's Leith Hill Half Marathon.  Following this event, Rianna's Fund received the latest donation of £1,000. We would like to take this opportunity to say a BIG thank you to Rob McCaffrey, and all the participants of the Trionium races for their generous and on-going support. For info. on all the runs go to www.trionium.com

Danes Hill School choose Rianna's Fund 

Danes Hill School have chosen to support Rianna's Fund as one of their charities. In one of their recent fundraising activities, some of the pupils set up a stall selling our Fairtrade gifts during a Saturday hockey tournament. In March, Debbie and Jo visited Danes Hill to talk with some of the younger children about the work of Rianna's Fund and were delighted to receive a cheque from the school.

Rianna’s Fund … six years on and reaching
more and more vulnerable children in the world

Rianna’s Fund has been able to develop and support many projects in Kenya, Uganda and India.

Recently our focus has turned to India. We first visited India in October 2008, visiting Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai. We were overwhelmed by the vast poverty amongst the multitude of children living in slums or on the streets and children orphaned through HIV/AIDS. Some children have been lucky enough to find places in children’s homes, but many of these are in disrepair or short of regular funds.

We are delighted to say that Rianna’s Fund will be supporting the following five projects in India:

• Mumbai - we are working with partners Raju and Shilpa to build a new home for 45 children who currently have nowhere other than the streets or railway station to live.
• Chennai - we are supporting the Annai Fathima Home, home to 169 children, 52 of whom are orphans from the 2005 Tsunami. The home is in desperate need of repair and maintenance. Children currently sleep on bare concrete floors, and the home struggles to feed them all.
• Hyderabad - Rianna’s Fund has committed to supporting a home called Rescue & Restore for 45 street children. Rianna’s Fund will be giving monthly financial support to this project, enabling the home to continue its work caring for the children’s needs.
• Dornakal (Andhra Pradesh) - Rianna’s Fund funded two new classrooms at the English Medium School in 2006, and is delighted to support the building of three additional classes at this school for desperately poor tribal children.
• Bangalore & Chennai Sports Projects - we are working with local partners to expand their programs for getting slum children back into school, using sport to engage them and to build confidence and self esteem.