UK Charity Commission Registration Number 1120536
 

Project Andromeda

"Adopt an Egyptian Family" - Sponsorship Scheme.

Visiting Families and Child Protection

February 2010

We are pleased to take sponsors to visit their families whenever it is possible and several visiting sponsors have been able to meet their families recently.  However, our guidelines only allow sponsors to visit their own family and not others and all visits must be supervised.  This is done as part of a child protection policy and to protect the privacy of the families concerned.  As much as we would like all our sponsors to meet their families when they are in Luxor it is not always possible because unfortunately there are communication difficulties as we do not have English speaking staff.  Also, while you are in Luxor, unless there is someone available who knows where the family lives then a visit just cannot be arranged.  In addition, there is the problem of police check-points which have to be negotiated when travelling outside the city’s environs.  These necessitate the presence of someone in authority who can vouch for the visitor and take responsibility for their safety. Our staff and volunteers are recognised by the check-point policemen but visitors are not.

It can be disappointing to have gathered together items for the children and then not to be able to present them in person, but we can assure you that all the items you bring to Luxor will reach the children and will be fairly distributed by our staff according to your wishes.  Our Chairman is pleased to accompany sponsors when she is in Luxor but at other times we ask for your understanding of the problems and apologise for the disappointment that not seeing your family might bring.  You are welcome to visit the west bank clinic during its opening hours.   

September 2009

Our sponsorship scheme has been more successful than we could ever have anticipated and there are now more than forty families with approximately 200 children in the scheme. New families are added to our list all the time as requests come in through the mosques and village elders, so new sponsors are needed all the time. Since starting the scheme, beds have been bought, roofs mended, toilets installed, medicines provided, hospital visits arranged and children have been fed and clothed. Soon the younger children will be able to go to our new nursery school. See our Project Cancer page for more details of the building work that has been done and the Project Aries page for more information on the contents of food parcels.

Sponsored families are visited every month and this allows us to monitor children's health. On a recent visit, one family had a new arrival but instead of celebration it was time of despair as the mother's milk had dried up and she was unable to feed her child. Without money, dried milk could not be bought and the chances of the baby's survival were small. Little Stars will make sure that she and her baby get the help they need.

If you are interested in sponsoring a family then just email sponsors@LittleStars-Luxor.org and we will forward two family information sheets to you from which you can choose the family you wish to support. Once you have chosen your family you will be sent all the relevant paperwork needed to set up the payments. Payments are made through your bank by Standing Order or regularly through Paypal if you are not a UK resident and can be cancelled by you at any time. With your permission we will then add your name to the list of sponsors on this website.

We are asking you to give £10.00 on a regular basis but will accept smaller amounts. All your sponsorship money will be used for your specific family but no money is ever given directly to a family except to cover a specific bill or to get a prescription filled for a sick child. We see your family every month when the food parcels are delivered and will give you regular updates of their progress. All the families' needs are assessed by the Chairman and our Needs Assessor on these visits but families can easily contact the Needs Assessor through our West Bank Clinic should an emergency arise.

March 2009

In December 2008 Little Stars started an "Adopt an Egyptian Family" sponsorship scheme. The idea came from one of our existing supporters when he asked if his own family in the United Kingdom could pay the school fees of an Egyptian child to ensure that the child had an education. We were asked if we could arrange this.

From this germ of an idea a sponsorship scheme soon took shape which was taken up not only by our existing supporters but by new supporters too. At the beginning of March 2009 we had more than thirty families in our sponsorship scheme and more than a hundred still waiting for sponsorship. All the families have children of school-age or younger and are without a breadwinner either through widowhood, desertion or the ill-health of the head of the family.

We are asking for a basic contribution of £10.00 sterling per month for sponsorship of each family. Little Stars is contributing a food parcel already to the family but sponsorship will allow up to 5 kgs of meat or poultry (dependent on the size of the family) to be added each month. This amounts to half a kilo of meat per person and is likely to be the only meat that the family has. If £10.00 is too much then we will accept whatever sum you can offer as sponsorship of the family can be shared with others. If this payment is then Gift Aided we can claim back the tax you paid on it and increase the contribution without any extra cost to yourselves.

Please help if you can.