Help from REACH

We would like to express our thanks and admiration for this wonderful project.



The Reach organisation
was founded in 1979 by businessman Nick Crace, who saw that there were
few opportunities for retired professionals and managers to use the
skills and experience they had built up over many years to help
worthwhile causes. REACH has grown considerably since .. matching some
1,500 volunteers with voluntary roles in at least 900 organisations.
REACH play a valuable role in strengthening the voluntary sector.

Our thanks for all the help Reach has given AVIF this past year.

Technorati Tags: reach online, volunteer, business skills

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Mentoring & help towards social enterprise

Key Fund Yorkshire has offered to provide AVIF with one free delegate entry to the FOOTSEY 100 event, York Racecourse, October 18 2007, and A GRANT OF £200. Here I will be given the unique opportunity to attend one to one surgeries with industry professionals on topics such as Finance, Marketing, Accounting Systems, Legal Advice and Regional Social Enterprise Support. There will also be running a FREE prize draw on the day for the opportunity to win £1000 worth of mentoring and cash support for AVIF.

This comes at a wonderful time for AVIF as we are in the process of building an ambitious but realistic social enterprise "charitable company" to provide sustainable development for both our Kenyan hosts and AVIF too.

Many many thanks to Kerry Chase, Marketing Officer in Sheffield for Key Fund Yorkshire.



Technorati Tags: key fund yorkshire, footsey 100, AVIF

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Harnessing Africa's People & Animal Power

Many thanks to AfriGadget for promoting this.



The HAPV (Advertised as HAPPY) from Pretoria, South Africa-based Wheel & Water is a twist on the ‘horse and buggy’ mode of transportation. Assisted by MACHETE, a buggy is fitted with a solar panel that charges a 12 volt battery under the driver’s seat & the “HAPPY” becomes an independent, sustainable source of energy that powers cell phone connectivity, front and rear emergency lights and a small neon tube at night.

Add a water filtration system, and the “HAPPY” doubles as a multi functional mobile business unit, that can empower an entrepreneurial owner, to generate income from it as a fresh water outlet, a mobile phone kiosk or a spaza shop – even after dark.


Technorati Tags: animal power, sustainable development, solar power

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Christmas Cards from Kenya

Kibera Paper.Com Cards are made by women from the Kibera slums area of Nairobi. Beautifully
crafted, hand-made, using recycled paper & all-natural products.
Buying these cards will allow these women to support their families, they receive 50% of all profits.
Contact AVIF or Rachel Baughen for further information.




Technorati Tags: christmas cards, recycled, poverty

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Geo-engineering worry

As already stated by others, I’m no expert on global warming, but maybe Planktos isn’t either ... "returning our ocean plankton to 1980 levels of health would remove half
of all our man-made emissions each year, or more than five times the
reductions called for in the Kyoto Protocol" so they claim.



Lets hope that's all ocean-seeding does, Planktos, since you've already seeded a 10,000 square kilometer area off the Galápagos, in the South Pacific.

[By adding iron to certain areas of the sea, the company hope to promote
plankton growth which they hope will absorb large amounts of carbon. This will
then sink to the ocean floor, mostly in the form of faeces, where it
will remain for several centuries. It's not a new concept, and has been
trialed before. However, whilst many studies have had success promoting
plankton growth, few have seen an increase in the amount of carbon
transported to the sea bed.]

Whale lovers and turtle conservationists will be wondering what a massive increase in iron will do to these species, not to mention the sensitive marine ecosystem as a whole ?



Technorati Tags: climate change, global warming, ocean seeding

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