Could you help fight the cholera outbreak in Haiti?
Christian doctors and nurses are urgently needed to help Samaritan’s Purse respond to the deadly cholera outbreak in Haiti. By the end of last year, more than 1,100 people had died and over 18,000 had been hospitalized. UN officials fear that as many as 200,000 people may be affected in the weeks to come.
And so Samaritan’s Purse has mounted an emergency medical response. Hundreds of lives have already been saved at its three Cholera Treatment Centres, but more nurses and doctors are desperately needed. Can you help? For more details, contact: Ruth Sanders at [email protected], call 020 8559 2044 ext. 208
Would you give a victim some support?
One in five of us would want to help people bereaved by murder, manslaughter or dangerous driving. But almost half of us hesitate to volunteer, because we are afraid we would not be able to offer the right support. The research, by Victim Support, came as Victim Support launched a campaign to recruit and train 450 new volunteers to extend the support it gives to people bereaved by homicide and road death. The charity says that as many as 2,000 people each year could really benefit from such support. For more details, please visit: http://www.victimsupport.org.uk
Volunteers even more important in bid to reduce re-offending in prisons
More volunteers are needed to help run Prison Fellowship’s restorative justice programme, Sycamore Tree, as work in prisons becomes even more reliant on trained volunteers. The Sycamore Tree initiative (http://www.prisonfellowship.org.uk/sycamore-tree.html) attempts to help offenders be more aware of how their actions affect others.
Sycamore Tree currently runs in over 30 Prisons and Young Offenders Institutions in England and Wales, and around 2000 offenders participate every year. For most offenders on Sycamore Tree, the most powerful element of the programme is when a victim of crime talks to a group about how crime has impacted on their life.
Last year 46 surrogate victims participated in the 113 Sycamore Tree courses run by Prison Fellowship. At the end of each programme members of the community are invited to support the offenders’ intentions to put into practice their improved behaviour. “It’s amazing, a drug dealer does not think he has any victims, just customers, but after six weeks with Prison Fellowship they know exactly who their victims are and the impact they have had on people’s lives,” said Diane Duckworth, a group facilitator.