Hope and Homes for Children

On 28 June members and their partners were given an interesting and informative (and at times emotional) presentation about Hope and Homes for Children by Immediate Past District Governor Doug Price and his wife Rosemary, both members of the Rotary Club of Chichester Priory.

 
The charity was founded by Colonel Mark Cook in 2004 and had received strong support from Rotary Clubs in the UK from the outset. He had served in the Balkans during the civil war there and had seen at first hand the poverty and deprivation suffered by children orphaned during the conflict. During his service there he had vowed to return after the war to help those children, to give them hope when they had none, and to give them a brighter future.
 
Initially the charity built orphanages but in due course its philosophy changed and it built homes suitable for families. These would be occupied by orphan children and adults who would care for them, the adults being either relatives or foster parents. The intention was that the children would experience family based care in a caring , loving family home rather than institutional care. As a result all the institutions in Bosnia have now closed.  

Hope and Homes now operates in 10 countries, keeping families together in a loving environment. Doug showed, as an example of this larger sphere of activity, a moving film of South African children orphaned as a result of AIDS and desperately needing the type of care provided by the charity.
 
The meeting concluded with President Jenny presenting Doug with a donation for Hope and Homes for Children of £200 from the Club, the fourth donation it had made since 1998.