Newsletter November 2002

Issue 78 November 2002

Margarita's Visit !

Many of you will of course have had the opportunity to meet Margarita Cautin, Head Teacher of the Westnell Nurseries during her whistlestop, 4-week tour of Britain. No doubt, like the Committee members, the contact with her has left you even more enthusiastic about the work that she and the staff are doing in Peru and her talks certainly gave all of us lots of material to think about. As always this seems to apply not only to the way we think about the projects in Peru but also to the way we see education, community involvement and response to social and economic need within our own country. For me this was exemplified by the comment of one person at a talk about the similarities between the way in which the work in Peru has developed and the way in which government initiatives in health and education are aiming to develop here. The team work and gradual development of skills, ideas and especially community involvement are a fantastic model to which all of us might aspire, but which are not often achieved.

Anyway, on to specifics! As described in the published itinerary, Margarita visited London, Yorkshire, Edinburgh, Newcastle and some of those locations again. We had the opportunity to have two long meetings between Margarita and the U.K. Committee. In addition and very importantly Margarita also had individual time with each Committee member seeing their lives and work and discussing Westnell and its future with them. This time will be invaluable in aiding the communication process between visits.

Margarita gave talks with slides and video at each of the locations she visited. Sometimes these were evening events and others were daytime visits to local schools or other organizations. Many thanks to all who attended for the fantastic reception you gave to her and the interest shown.

As a result, as well as cementing existing links and forging new ones, we also raised enough money to cover the cost of the visit with several hundred pounds to spare. This was achieved through the sale of Peruvian goods, our Greetings cards and donations.

As usual special thanks must go to Eleanor Moffatt who raised over £400 at an evening event in Edinburgh!

Fundraising

We anticipate that Margarita's visit may have the usual knock-on effect in terms of funds as she seems to generate so much enthusiasm that fund-raising increases over the following weeks and months.

We have already received substantial donations from the Leeds Latin American Women's Support Group, from Catholic Care in Leeds, from the Anglo-Peruvian Society in London and from the Liverpool Spanish Circle.

Brunswick School in Penrith continue to send us regular donations from their Happy Jar and we have just heard that the International Mother and Toddler Group in Stavanger, Norway are sending us a generous cheque. Amazingly the link with this group began through ex-committee members Helen and Mark Lacey when they lived in Stavanger 16 years ago and has continued ever since!

News from Peru

Since Margaritas return to Peru , as well as her usual duties she has been working hard to brief the other members of staff on the developments from her contact with the Committee in U.K. They also continue to work on the tricky area of seeking funds to ensure that the grants that end over the next 2 years will be replaced. To this end Margarita has had further meetings with Ana Urunaga from Save the Children to sound out ideas with her and will report back to us shortly.

During her visit we were able to discuss the impact of this work on the staff group and think of how they might be helped to develop the necessary skills to become further involved in this. Margarita was able to identify some training needs which can be met and also worked with two of our members, Mark Patchett and Gareth Jenkins on how she can best access their experience in this type of fund-raising.

Greetings Cards

Having raised almost £4000 from last years Greetings cards, we were hoping to do equally well this year. Margarita's visits usually produce bumper sales and we have also used the beautifully designed Westnell website to advertise remaining stock from previous years for those of you who may not have seen all of the fabulous designs we have had over the years.

For the first time for many years we have had to pay for printing of the cards. However we are once again indebted to our talented designers, Helen Wallis and Sarah Scott for producing 4 striking designs.

So far in addition to cards sold during Margarita's visit, we have had over 300 packs ordered by mail and look set to sell out of the 20,000 new designs as well as a substantial amount of old stock.

If you have not already ordered there is still time to remind yourselves of previous designs you might wish to re-order.

Ede Fehrenbach, our Treasurer has moved to 36 Winterbrook Rd., Herne Hill, London SE24 9JA.

Mark Patchett - Chair
Ede Fehrenbach - Treasurer
Christine Bond - Secretary