Women in elderly care smiling and holding ribbons at support groupCare

Bishop Creighton House

October 25, 2015By

Providing care service for the elderly and vulnerable

Bishop Creighton House helps disadvantaged, elderly and vulnerable people, those with learning difficulties and low-income families. Established over 110 years ago and based in Fulham, south west London, Bishop Creighton House provides essential care across West London.

The Axis Foundation’s grant of £2,450 went towards their Homeline project. This is a free telephone befriending service for elderly and isolated people. The service will contact medical and social services and arrange visits from a volunteer for a friendly chat or to help with practical tasks like filling out forms. Homeline ensures that older people are not forgotten and that they have a friendly voice to talk to when they need assistance.

“As a small charity, it really is fantastic to be helped by the Axis Foundation! This will go a long way to maintaining the volunteer-run telephone service. The grant will go directly to providing a daily or weekly Safe & Well check for people (with an average age of 82) who are lonely, isolated or have health issues” – Joy Houghton-Brown, Manager for Older People’s Services

“Our telephone befriending is a wonderful service providing over 1,350 friendship and support calls a week to 154 lonely, older people. Thank you again for your kind support of our project” – Joy Wilson, Manager

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Wide Horizons logoDonations

Wide Horizons

October 12, 2015By

Adventure-based learning activities for disadvantaged children

Wide Horizons delivers a range of adventure-based learning activities for all age groups of school children. These include day centre nature experiences for primary school children and adventurous activities for older children and young people. They call this their ‘Adventure Learning Partnership’ programme.

Wide Horizons used their £5,000 donation from the Axis Foundation to provide a programme of outdoor education and adventure to sixty children from economically disadvantaged areas.

Our donation will fund a week long programme of activities, designed specifically to link with the school curriculum and help with educational and personal development. The children from Marvel Lane and Brent Knoll schools in Lewisham are selected based on a means testing system to identify those most in need.

“Helping Wide Horizons deliver adventure-based activities to children whose families cannot afford  thems, supports our belief that every child should have the opportunity to experience adventure as part of their education and throughout their lives”  – Axis Foundation trustee, Tim Hayes 

The benefits to children attending the adventure-based learning programme are far reaching and include increased confidence and self-esteem, better communication skills, an understanding of how to work as part of a team and achieving personal goals. These benefits combine to improve the chances of success at school and future employment.

“The donation to the Adventure Learning Partnership Programme was matched to two local primary schools in Lewisham which proved to be very successful. Each school had an amazing time, infact everyone had a fantastic time” – Lynn Leadbeater, Fundraising Manager

“The week was a great success and the teachers and children were buzzing when they returned back to school” – Headteacher, Eddie Dove

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3 children sit on large red chair at DemelzaDemelza

Demelza granted £75,000 in 2015 for specialist nurse care

April 20, 2015By

Charity partner receives a donation to fund more specialist care nurses.

The Axis Foundation has handed over £75,000 to the Demelza Children’s Hospice, a Kent-based children’s charity, after another year (2015) of employee fundraising and corporate donations, bringing the total amount given to the hospice through the Foundation to £250,000.

Fundraising activities have included Skydives, bake sales, participating in Demelza’s ‘Go Dotty’ week, an annual charity ball and other fun things organised by Axis’ people. Demelza Children’s Hospice, which operates in the South East area, provides care for the terminally-ill children to ease discomfort and provide support for children and their families.

Axis and the Axis Foundation adopted the hospice as their charity partner out of appreciation for their essential work with children and teenagers who, in most cases, make it to adulthood. Axis regularly challenges its people to raise money for their ‘Adopt a Nurse’ campaign in which the money raised helps to fund Demelza’s specialist care nurses’ annual salaries.

The Axis Foundation was established in 2008 and started donating in 2009 – Demelza was one of the Foundation’s first recipients. But Axis has been supporting the charity for a number of years prior to that (since 2004) and the total amount given, including money before the formation of the Axis Foundation, stands at over £500,000.

Ryan Campbell, Chief Executive of Demelza Children’s Hospice, gave his thanks to Axis: “Thank you for the incredible amount of £75,000 that Axis has raised for Demelza over the past year. Axis has really taken Demelza to its heart and has been fundraising for the charity over the last 11 years.

“The outstanding amount you have raised to date has meant that Demelza has been able to pay 13 specialist care nurses’ salaries, allowing us to provide the highest quality care possible to all of the children, young people and their families that need support across the South East. Demelza is only able to achieve this thanks to the support of our wonderful staff and volunteers and the amazing donations from organisations like Axis.”

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Children play dress up in Victorian clothes at the Ragged School in London.Donations

Ragged School Museum

February 16, 2015By

Boost for Victorian family learning programme

The whole family can enjoy “a day in the life of a Victorian” thanks to our support of the The Ragged School Museum‘s family learning programme.

Our donation of £3,000 will go towards free, drop-in Family Learning Holiday Activities in the school holidays.These activities are designed to engage the whole family, highlighting how learning together can be fun. It is estimated over 4,000 people will benefit from the Family Learning Programme over the year, here in what today remains a deprived area of London.

“Everyone at the Ragged School Museum feels proud and privileged to receive another donation from the Axis Foundation.  Your generosity is vital support for our lively family learning programme. We couldn’t be more grateful. Victorian philanthropy created the ragged school movement, today the Axis Foundation mirrors that generosity for new generations of children for which we are truly grateful” – Erica Davies,  Museum Director

More About The Ragged School Museum

The Ragged School Museum offers a unique experience, a living snapshot of Victorian childhood. Here, in a reconstructed Victorian classroom, pupils on school visits can directly experience how their destitute Victorian counterparts were taught. There is also a contemporaneous East End kitchen, so they can discover how hard domestic work was before electricity powered washing machines! The Museum is housed at  Dr Barnardo’s Copperfield Road Ragged School in Mile End which, from 1877, provided education, food and clothing to Victorian London’s destitute. It was the largest ragged school in London.

 

See our video celebrating our 10th birthday in 2019 – and find out how the Ragged School used our donation

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Boy stands on ball next to new sports equipment at Confidence through sportDonations

Confidence Through Sport

January 12, 2015By

New sports equipment for children in deprived area

Confidence Through Sport is a community organisation that runs sporting activities for 5-11 year olds. They are located in a park and a school club in North Thamesmead.

£2,500 from the Axis Foundation will fund new sports equipment for the sports-based community initiative, which operates in one of the most deprived areas in the country. We’re covering the cost of footballs, goals and some brand-new training apparatus.

The project remains affordable so that underprivileged children and those with additional needs or disabilities can also partake in healthy outdoor activities. They focus on football but other sports, such as badminton and basketball, are also encouraged.

There are currently 80 children registered and the club is overseen by five volunteers, including three official coaches with one being FA registered. The volunteer coaches strive to be a positive influence on the youngsters, who are often from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Confidence Through Sports seeks to build the self-esteem and motivation of children and young people, as this will assist them in other areas of their lives.

“Before we were running on limited resources but now we have new footballs, built some goals and bought different equipment used to test agility. All of this allows our members to gain valuable sport experience and can help us provide for more young people”  – Robert Parrara, Chairman 

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