Charities

Great Western Air Ambulance Charity

It is estimated one in five of our critical missions saves a life. That life would be lost if we did not exist.

Great Western Air Ambulance Charity (GWAAC) provide an air ambulance service for the counties of Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire, North Somerset and parts of Wiltshire. We receive no funding from the government or the National Lottery. That means we rely entirely on the generosity of you, the people we serve.

The GWAAC helicopter is based at Filton Airport, just north of Bristol, and is part of the regional 999 emergency response service.

We are one of few air ambulances who work to the "gold standard" Critical Care Model. Put simply, it means rushing a specialist doctor and paramedic to the scene. We are a flying Accident & Emergency Department.

The team fly seven days a week, 365 days a year and attend over 100 incidents per month. Yours is one of the busiest air ambulances in the UK, and the number of missions will increase with each year. The current aircraft is a medically kitted-out Bolkow 105. It has served us well, but our priority is to replace it with the more capable Eurocopter 135.

A Life for a Cure

Ryan Bresnahan, our son, died very suddenly on 31st March 2010 of Meningitis B. He was a fit, healthy, caring young man, full of personality and a sports scholar at Clifton College. We had no notice or even time to say goodbye – it all happened within an hour.

We are trying to remain positive and determined that something good must come of his life and are raising funds for 'a Life for a Cure' – Ryan's Meningitis Appeal. Our initial target is £1million towards an overall £7million target within Meningitis UK to find a vaccine for this merciless disease.

Six lives are lost every week to Meningitis. There is no vaccine for Meningitis B, which accounts for 90 per cent of all meningococcal cases in the UK.

We are delighted to announce £180,000 has been raised to date, from which an award of £135,000 has been made to our first chosen research project. The pioneering programme covers a 12 month period specifically aimed at students at Sheffield University, focusing on a preventative vaccine.

Please visit his website www.ryanbresnahan.org for more background to Ryan and our Appeal.

Best wishes and many thanks,
John, Michelle and Charlotte Bresnahan

NSPCC

The NSPCC exists to protect all children from cruelty. One of the ways we can achieve this is by working directly with those children and families who are most at risk. To reach the most disadvantaged we are opening a new state-of-the-art service centre in Bristol which will bring help and treatment to those children most at risk, including children from black and minority ethnic communities, children who are at risk of physical abuse, and babies.

The NSPCC Helpline provides advice, information and assistance to adults who have concerns about a child.

ChildLine provides free, 24-hour, confidential support to all children and young people wherever they are in the UK and however they want to contact us. The new ChildLine Schools Service is focussing on primary school children. By 2016, we plan to visit every primary school in the UK at least once every two years speaking to 660,000 primary aged children, in 11,000 schools every year.

The Prince's Trust

The Prince's Trust is a youth charity that helps change young lives.

We give practical and financial support, developing key workplace skills such as confidence and motivation. We work with 13 to 30-year-olds who have struggled at school, have been in care, are long-term unemployed or have been in trouble with the law.

We have helped more than 600,000 young people since 1976 and support 100 more each working day. More than three in four young people we helped last year moved into work, education or training.

Around one in five young people in the UK are not in work, education or training. Youth unemployment costs the UK economy £10 million a day in lost productivity, while youth crime costs £1 billion every year.

We have core values which run through The Prince's Trust and its people in order to enable us to deliver our programmes of support, and these are:

Approachable – We are open-minded and value diversity
Non-judgmental – We focus on the potential not the past
Inspiring – We lead by example
Empowering – We enable positive change
Passionate – We are absolutely committed to supporting young people

See the video of the inaugural Prince's Trust Red Dinner held at Clifton College.

Quartet Community Foundation

The main focus of Quartet Community Foundation is to change people's lives for the better across the West of England. We do this by enabling a wide variety of donors to fund projects that make a difference where people live and work.

Quartet Community Foundation is an independent charity and company limited by guarantee. Originally founded in November 1986 as the Greater Bristol Trust, our geographic area and name have evolved to be within local government boundaries as part of a nationwide Community Foundation movement. Since 2005, Quartet Community Foundation has served a population of about 1 million people in the four unitary authority areas of Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

Community Foundations match those who want to invest their money with those who give of their time and energy to improve local communities. We see our role as nurturing both, celebrating the joy of giving and inspiring further action.

Over the past 25 years we have made grants of over £25 million and built a permanent endowment of over £16 million. We distribute over 1,000 grants each year to voluntary and community groups across the West of England.

In 2012, Quartet Community Foundation will celebrate a quarter century of service to the West of England. Our challenge is to build on our firm foundations to inspire the next generation of donors to support the wellbeing of their local communities.

Variety, the Children's Charity

Variety, the Children's Charity is dedicated to improving the lives of children who are disabled and disadvantaged. We do this by raising funds for specialist mini buses, wheelchairs, sports equipment, hospital wards and all sorts of other practical solutions that enable individuals, projects and organisations across the UK to give a wider range of opportunities to the children in their care.

Every sick, disabled and disadvantaged child should have the freedom, independence and hope to reach their potential.

To find out more about the work that we do or donate please go to www.variety.org.uk/donate or Text SWUK12 to 70070.