Our Commitment to Children
Scholarships
The Foresters Scholarship Programme is open to
members and the children of members who are within 18 months of
leaving school or college. The applicant for the scholarship
must be planning to enrol on a full time course at any University
or similar in the United Kingdom.
Applicants may also receive financial aid from
other organisations, including additional scholarships.
Financial need has no bearing on whether an application is
successful or not. However, we take voluntary activities and work
in the community into consideration when selecting students for the
draw. Successful students receive £500 a year for four years of
study.
Activ8!
ACTIV8! is a programme of activities and
events across the UK for Foresters members aged 18-30, and
provides an opportunity to meet new friends and have fun. The group
are brimming with ideas and enthusiasm about establishing their new
youth network with a chance to develop their leadership,
communications and team-building skills.
Association of Children’s Hospices
(ACH)
Foresters and ACH continue to work with local
children’s hospices across the UK with a variety of fundraising
events and initiatives. Our support helps children with life
limiting conditions, and their families, with the emotional and
physical challenges they face by providing expert palliative care
and a range of other essential support in a home from home
environment.
Hospices
Foresters continues to work with Naomi House,
establishing the Foresters Family Fun & Open Days as an annual
event at the Children’s Hospice. Naomi House helps to support
children with life limiting conditions, and their families with the
emotional and physical challenges they face, by providing expert
palliative care and a range of other essential support in a home
from home environment.
CLIC Sargent
Every day in the UK ten families are told
their child has cancer. As the county’s leading children's cancer
charity, CLIC Sargent is the only organisation to offer them all
round care and support. Over the past few of years
Foresters branches all over the UK have been building relationships
with CLIC Sargent to work with them on events in their areas to
help make a difference for children with cancer. Our
programme of dinners, concerts and activities has helped to provide
support and care to children with cancer, and their families
through the difficult journey from diagnosis to the end of their
treatment and beyond.
Children’s Miracle
Network
The Children’s Miracle Network (CMN) is a
non-profit organisation that raises funds and awareness for
children’s hospitals across the US and Canada, and Foresters has a
long standing relationship with the organisation. Every year, CMN
hospitals treat 17 million children for every disease and injury
imaginable. There is a Children's Miracle Network hospital
dedicated to serving children in every community across the United
States and Canada. In 2007 CMN expanded to Europe with its
first Radiothon in Ireland that raised £400,000. The wonderful
work that Children's Miracle Network do will help over
170 children's hospitals.
The Radiothon programme continues to be one of Children's
Miracle Network's most successful fund raising initiatives
which involves a partnership between Children's Miracle Network, a
local hospital and a local radio station. Each year over 30 million
listeners tune in to 270 radio partners to hear stories about local
children treated at Children's Miracle
Network hospitals.
Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI)
Over the past 135 years Foresters have
supported the work of the RNLI. This has helped to save many lives
through the years and we are delighted to support the RNLI in this
our special anniversary year by launching our appeal to raise
£135,000 for the Train One Save Many campaign.
In 2008, RNLI Lifeboat Crew and Lifeguards helped nearly 20,000
people – that’s an average of over 51 people each day. For RNLI
Lifeguards, 63% of all those rescued were children or teenagers.
Lifeboat volunteers come from all walks of life and the only thing
that enables them to save lives and keep themselves safe is their
RNLI training - and the RNLI know that by training one volunteer
they will go on to save many. It costs an average of over
£1,000 a year to train a volunteer RNLI crew member and we aim to
raise £135,000 to train 135 of these heroes – one for each of our
anniversary years.
Leonard Cheshire Disability - Readibility
Campaign
Leonard Cheshire Disability’s founding
vision is to help change society’s attitudes to disability and to
serve disabled people around the world. Leonard Cheshire
Disability is the largest disability charity in the UK serving over
21,000 disabled people. It is active in 52 countries around
the world including Canada and the USA.
Over the last few years, Leonard
Cheshire Disability has trialled a fundraising Read-a-thon with
great success to selected primary schools. With support from
Foresters, Leonard Cheshire Disability will now be able to roll-out
this campaign across the whole of the UK.
The main aims of Readability are to
encourage children to read for pleasure and for purpose, to create
greater awareness of disability and disability issues by promoting
social responsibility and life skills, and to raise much needed
funds for both schools and for Leonard Cheshire
Disability.