Mary Storrie & Emma Davies - Rosie May Foundation

Mary Storrie & Emma Davis gave a clear & comprehensive talk on the Rosie May Foundation which had been formed in 2004 after the tragic killing of Rosie May, Mary's daughter. It was out of this tragedy that a small local charity with big ambition was born - "out of tragedy comes hope". It was clear in the talk that the co-founders of this charity are determined and innovative and one sign of their success is that they have had to move from the office on the dining room table to premises in Bingham.

Mary told us that they currently are working with 60 children and their families and on involvement they work to the principle of giving a "hand up" rather than a "hand out". It's a guiding principle that will ensure sustainability in the future and enable the charity to be constantly "taking on new" families. Project Hope is about "keeping families together" and it aims "to support families through their crisis" and give them the skills to function after their involvement with the project. Their intervention at an early stage gives families the hope and the skills to avoid placing their children in orphanages. Mary explained that normally they point their involvement towards single parent families with an under three year-old (these are the formative years) where they feel their work will be most productive.

We soon became aware that the Charity, whose main work is in Sri Lanka and Nepal is not short on ideas. As not content with "skilling up" women to be insence stick makers & seemstresses they have started up a new project - "Think Pink". This satisfies two issues: firstly enabling women to learn to drive, be issued with a licence & earn money from a new found skill; secondly it offers safe transport for women & children (the research shows that an alarmingly high number of women & children are abused on public transport). The new Tuk-Tuk drivers will be offered support with a savings account with the hope that they will be able to save enough from their earnings to lease the vehicle with a view to ownership in the longer term. In time this project will be self funding and enable further women to embark on the training programme.

Another project provides families with solar lights to enable children to study and complete homework during the evening. Eaductaion & training is certainly at the heartn of the work undertaken by this Charity.