Wednesday 27 March 2013

Please read.

I've just received this letter from Matt Banks at the charity. Please take a second to read it.
I must go back again, but cannot afford to fund it myself this time. Therefore I have set up a just giving page to help get me there in probably about 18 months time. Chris and the children will be coming, but we will be covering their costs ourselves. This is just to cover my own costs of travel, accommodation, and car hire while I'm there. This means I can work at the cancer ward in Dar but hopefully also travel out to the 2 other centres and help get some music going there also.
My just giving ad http://justgiving.com/JosTanzania
I'm on a mission! Please help. The letter....

Dear Joanna Watts,
Letter of appreciation and future plans
27th March 2013
I wanted to write to you on behalf of Children in Crossfire to thank you for the great work you have done during your recent 3 weeks volunteering in our Paediatric Oncology Programme. We do not write letters for all volunteers, but your dedication, enthusiasm and unconditional engagement with the children was exceptional and I wanted to personally acknowledge that.
As you experienced, music can have a transformational impact on children’s experience whilst they are receiving treatment for cancer. This is well known in The West, but in Africa, poor resources mean that these elements of treatment are often neglected.
Children in Crossfire are keen to maintain the momentum of your visit and to integrate a more comprehensive music therapy element into our existing play therapy programme. As we discussed, over the coming year we have funding to establish new children’s cancer wards in 2 regional hospitals in Tanzania, in Mwanza and Moshi. Alongside the clinical services we will work through our local partner ‘Tumaini La Maisha’ to deliver non-clinical services. Part of this will be the play therapy programme.
We would love to work with you to integrate music therapy to that programme and invite you to return next year to deliver this programme and train local staff to be able to sustain the joy you bring to the children.
However, as you know, great ideas need funding and, although we have some funds for the non-clinical services, we do not currently have funds for the music therapy element. It would be great to work with you to develop a plan and budget of what would be needed. Once we have this we can support you in whatever way possible to raise the funds to make it happen. I look forward to on-going discussions that can progress this idea. It is always good to maintain momentum, so lets talk soon.
Once again, from all at Children in Crossfire and the children at Muhimbili Hospital, thank you for everything you have done. Now, let’s do more!
Kind Regards,
Matthew Banks
Head of International Programmes Children in Crossfire

1 comment:

Louise M said...

Jo, we should do some special fund-raising at Cypress. Maybe we could set up some formal links between the school and the charity and then from time-to-time get kids at school involved in specific fund-raisers or some of the proceeds from school fairs (from a specific stand) etc could be donated..? Louise x