We were very fortunate to receive a donation of fantastic training kit from Manchester United recently from their training complex at Carrington.  Some of the kit has now found its way to a massive refugee camp in Northern Uganda which houses 100,000 displaced people who have fled South Sudan.

The kit was taken out for us by the Watford based charity, Eagles Wings and it was delivered by their founder, Bruce Oliver.  He explained that many of the people have no possessions and there is nothing to do for the thousands of young people.  The kits are now being used as part of a football project where teams wear it in inter zone matches and play tournaments.

As we say, it really is more than just a shirt as it brings hope where little exists.  Thanks to the kit managers at Carrington who kindly sorted and helped get it to us.

Probably one of the most enjoyable aspects of KitAid is being able to help so many people across the world.  As you will know, we operate a very cost effective model and we have always worked on the basis that if we do build up a surplus of funds, we will mange our finances responsibly and make grants for what we consider to be surplus to needs, rather than sitting on money in the bank.

As a result of the 15^th Anniversary Dinner and some other donations we were able to release £4k for small grants to charities we know and work with.  We have made the following grants to

• Craft Aid – £1,000                     Working with orphanages and sports projects in Uganda
• Stegota FC – £1,000                To be used on a special project for the community to supply shirt printing equipment
• Maleala Lesotho – £750          To buy kit, equipment and boots for 35 players from age of 10 – 16 years
• Mbale Uganda – £1,000          To buy kit, equipment, goal posts, netballs for 200 pupils at Budwale Secondary School

For the last 4 years we have had a tenuous link with another great charity who arrange for a plane load of children from Belarus, who still are affected by the Chernobyl radiation fall out, to spend a month in the UK with host families.

Through our link with Affinity Water we arrange for them to spend a day at our Environment and Education Centre, which they absolutely love. 

We also give them a goody bag which includes some new kit and other presents.  The children actually boost their immunity in the time they are in the UK to see them through the next 18 months, which is quite amazing. 

If you know of anyone who might be able to arrange a special visit for them please let me know at derrick.williams@affinitywater.co.uk

We recently met Rachel Yankey and at our last boxing up session it was great to meet Jordan Nobbs.

I have always wanted to develop a partnership with ALFC as they are followed all over the world and it links in with a lot of the work we do to support girls football/sports projects across Africa. Both Rachel and Jordan were lovely, really down to earth and refreshingly interested in what we do.

Again, the power of twitter showed itself as Jordan tweeted a photo we took at boxing up and this was viewed by 5,800 people, including followers in Japan, America and Germany.

If you don’t use twitter, have a look online at www.twitter.com/kitaid Thanks to Louisa for arranging the meet up and we are hoping to involve Arsenal Ladies a lot more in the future.

Many thanks to Julian Chenery from AIG Insurance for arranging this event, which happened on Friday 13 June. I have seen press cuttings from different parts of the UK, including Devon, Cornwall and Glasgow.

Julian is in the process of collecting all the kit so we are not sure exactly how much we will receive yet.

Hopefully this will become an annual event and next year we can get even more companies involved. I have also been contacted separately by Schroders in the City, who are doing something similar for us.