10th Anniversary Celebrations!

On Saturday 20 October AidCamps celebrated 10 years of delivering group and individual volunteering opportunites overseas.  The event, held at the Yorkshire Grey on Theobold's Road, saw Trustees welcome volunteers old and new to this special reunion.

Bryan Stevens, AidCamps' Chair welcomes friends and volunteers to the celebrations

Volunteers from projects in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cameroon, India and Malawi met with friends old and new who had one thing in common - a desire to help some of the world's poorest communities get access to a variety of community resources; from clean water to medical centres and from community centres to schools.

Bryan Stevens, AidCamps Chairman welcomed the volunteers formally at 6pm and he was followed by Marianne Johnson a long standing Trustee of AidCamps and the person within the charity responsible for measuring its impact over the past decade.

Marianne Johnson sharing some of AidCamps' incredible successes

Marianne informed the audience that, thanks to their efforts, AidCamps' projects were now helping around 18,000 people a year get access to education or health. The charity had sent over 500 people to developing countries to help deliver projects wanted by the local community and AidCamps had given birth to at least three separate charities as well as dozens of campaigns targeted at meeting specific needs outside of the usual AidCamps' remit.

The event was attended by Nigel Palmer of The Landirani Trust who spoken on the work of Landirani in Malawi and on how successful the recent Community Based Chidren's Centre project had been - AidCamps first project in Malawi and its first rammed earth building ever!

Nigel Palmer from the Landirani Trust bringing greetings to the volunteers and sharing some of Landirani's vision

Suzanne Holder, one of AidCamps' new co-ordinators also introduced the recently formed ACAT group (AidCamps Action Team); a network of Co-ordinators and supporters that aims to spread the AidCamps' message across the UK and beyond, whilst bringing new ideas and campaigns to the charity to ensure its continued relevance and success.

Suzanne Holder with a few of the new ideas being generated by the newly formed ACAT group

Following these brief presentations the group enjoyed a film of the Malawi project prepared by the talented young film maker Sam Palmer, as well as some of the inspirational videos taken during AidCamps' first ever corporate AidCamp with global paints and coatings giant AkzoNobel.

The rest of the evening was spent as it should have been - catching up with old friends, making new ones and sharing stories.

Gareth, Bill and Gilly catch up on developments in Cameroon

 Kevin and Marianne talking about the Rookwood School AidCamp in July this year

 Janet and Simon (left) prepare Bryan for his trip to Cameroon

Emma (left), Rog and Margaret deep in conversation

 Carla (left) and Emma talking about their future travel plans

Gilly catches up with AidCamps' founder Marios

 Julie, one of AidCamps' founding trustees and charity secretary (left) talks about Nepal with Sandy

Volunteers from Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and Cameroon comparing their experiences

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