Anita, Alex and Annabel Nicholson Memorial Fund

Following the immense success of our Pre-Rugby World Cup dinner, we are excited to announce a similar event ahead of the Lions Tour in 2025. Additionally, our active running event supporters are currently planning their events for 2025 to continue supporting our cause.

Project Updates

Kampuchea Balopp (KB) – Cambodia

In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the Kampuchea Balopp (KB) project continues to play a vital role in the lives of vulnerable children. Through regular rugby sessions, the children experience inclusion and acceptance, fostering a sense of belonging. Despite fundraising challenges in the post-COVID economic climate, we are thrilled to announce a new funding arrangement with KB, which will ensure the long-term sustainability of this essential programme.

Khelo Rugby – India

Our collaboration with Khelo Rugby remains strong, especially since their amalgamation with Future Hope. We are currently in the second year of a three-year funding agreement, which provides educational scholarships at both high school and university levels. Khelo Rugby’s programmes help children thrive in both their education and personal lives. The impact of their work is seen in the communities they serve, where high school graduation rates have soared from 18% to 80%.

The recent release of the podcast “Hope Within the Mango Trees” offers an inspiring glimpse into the work Khelo Rugby and Future Hope are doing to support these children.

English Language Program – Saraswatipur

In partnership with Studycat, our English language programme has seen great success, especially in Saraswatipur. Despite setbacks in Kolkata, where classes were suspended due to loss of accommodation, the Saraswatipur programme has thrived. Data from recent analysis shows high engagement levels and strong literacy performance among students. With the funds raised from our 2023 Christmas book appeal, we have been able to print Studycat’s proprietary books for the Saraswatipur class.

Plans are underway to extend this programme in a more formal setting, employing dedicated educators, increasing the number of tablets, and expanding access to local children. Funds from the “Little by Little” campaign in 2022 will support this expansion. We are immensely grateful to Studycat for their instrumental support in making this programme a success.

Period Poverty Initiative

We continue to address period poverty across our supported projects. This is a long-term initiative, and we are actively engaging with all of our programmes to ensure girls receive the support they need to manage this challenge each month.

Looking Ahead

We are in the final stages of confirming new partnerships with a project in Myanmar, as well as additional projects in Cambodia and Thailand.

As always, our heartfelt thanks go out to our donors and supporters. Your generosity makes all this work possible, and we remain committed to reaching even more vulnerable children across Asia.

Links:

• Read more about Atlas Asia here
• Follow us on The Atlas Foundation Linked In

Fundraising

The London Marathon 2024 fell on the 5th anniversary of the Colombo Easter bombings in which Anitia, Alex and Annabel lost their lives. We were delighted to partner with Muscular Dystrophy UK (MDUK) who kindly allocated places in the London Marathon to Ben Nicholson, Pablo Diago and Patricia Sanz. It was a wonderful way to mark this anniversary and honour the memories of Anita, Alex and Annabel. Fundraising proved a success raising over £15,000 for the Anita, Alex and Annabel Nicholson Memorial fund and over £3,000 for MDUK.

Following the success of the Pre Rugby World Cup dinner we will be staging a similar event ahead of the Lions Tour 2025.

2. Projects

The need to support vulnerable children in Asia continues and that remains our committed goal. We are determined to keep expanding our reach and maintaining support to thousands of children, helping with education, health and wellbeing through our partner programmes in Asia.

Kampuchea Balopp

The project continues to be a vital pillar for the children in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to access regular rugby sessions and to feel that sense of inclusion and acceptance all children deserve.

The KB educators continue to make a positive impact on the children in the program and have a genuine desire to improve the lives of these disadvantaged children.

Khelo Rugby

We are pleased to continue our relationship with Khelo Rugby, now part of Future Hope. Our funding is used to support general operations and two tiers of educational scholarships at high school and university levels. This will ensures the longevity of our relationship with them and the great work they do.

The project to continues to help young children in India to thrive and we are very pleased to be a part of this programme. Atlas Foundation and Khelo Rugby share a drive and determination to support these children in their lives and education. Not only are the children at Khelo rugby given the chance to express and enjoy themselves through the amazing rugby programme, but the scholarship programmes ensure that children are able to continue their education in circumstances where they otherwise would not.

This has evolved into a truly community led programme with the ethos of “nothing for us without us” bearing on everything they do.

We look to have a tangible and meaningful impact on individual children today, but we also aim to penetrate the stubborn barriers of inequality and deficits that linger in many communities over the long term. Khelo Rugby is a model example of delivering on that long term goal. They have already high school graduation rates rise from 18% to 80% in the communities they serve.

Future Hope with Khelo Rugby have released a podcast “Hope within the mango trees”, this allows the listeners a tangible insight into the project and the excellent work they do and appreciate the impact they have on the children within their community.

English Language Program

Our educational program with Khelo Rugby continues in Sarawatipur – in partnership with Khelo Rugby and Studycat (www.studycat.com ). The program provides pop up English classes for young children (ages 6-8). The initial pilot in Kolkota was a success but unfortunately they lost their accommodation to host the classroom this has meant that in Kolkata the classes are temporarily suspended. This has not dampened our enthusiasm and Khelo has taken the opportunity to expand to Sarawatipur.

The data recent analysis for Sarawatipur identifies that 90 % of participant accounts were used on a weekly basis with the average playing time ranging between 20 to 30 minutes per session. The average correct score for each participant ranged between 76% to 87% holding an average of 81%.

During the data analysis it was identified that more work is needed on literacy and alphabet areas. Data analysis exposed that this cohort of children have limited access to books and literature which may account for the data. To address this issue Studycat have kindly donated their books on a PDF format, we have had these printed with the funds raised from our Christmas book appeal 2023.

We are excited to announce that we are currently in talks with a Cambodian charity to expand this project and develop an educational hub with the kind support of Studycats, we are currently finalising details, more information to follow.

We look forward to growing this partnership with Studycat and announcing further expansion in the near future.

Period Poverty

A further initiative we promote and support is Period Poverty and we are engaging all of the projects we support on the importance of supporting girls with the challenges they face every month. This is a long term project with which we will persist.

Other Project news

We hope to soon be able to confirm partnerships with a Myanmar project and another project in Cambodia.

As always, we thank all our donors and supporters without who this work would not be possible