News Letter
July 2011
Bel Air Children’s Home
We have been so busy, you will hardly recognise us!
The Home has had an amazing mural painted in the multipurpose room by a local artist
called Louis, who was assisted by Juliette Smith from the UK. They were with us for
nearly three weeks. The children chose the topics and Louis and Juliette set to work
making their imaginations into a reality.
Alison brought us butterflies and kites
from England. Amanda came from New York and repaired our snuggle puppies.
Our very
own Miss Alison who looks after the play school had her birthday on May 19 and
La Source donated a birthday cake big enough for us all to enjoy! They also very
kindly gave us a huge amount of sheets and towels.
On the topic of education, three
out of four of the girls passed the exams to enter secondary school in September,
a commendable achievement thanks in part to Ms Green and Ms Alexander, a part time
tutor who worked with them. We hope when the library is fully operational that the
older girls will have a designated area to study in.
The child sponsorship program
has started well. We now have twelve children sponsored. The money that we raise
through this program goes towards education and extra curricula activities out of
school hours. We have an exciting and busy new timetable for all the children starting
in September. If you are interested in sponsoring a child, please get in contact
with Alison in the UK alisonkynastonjones@btinternet.com, or Lisa Charles the Home
Manager at belairhome@spiceisle.com
Our bedrooms upstairs have been painted and everything
looks bright and full of colour! Each of the girls got to choose their own colour
scheme, so every room is different. We are just waiting for Art Fabric to deliver
the new curtains. They have been designed in five different bright Caribbean colours.
A
new edition is the beautiful birthday heart on the wall in the corridor. We will
put the person’s name on it if they have a birthday in the current month.
Bel Air
has received a huge delivery of toys and posters from the Friends of Bel Air in England
and have decided that we wanted to share some of our good fortune with other local
schools and groups. So for the time being, we are OK for toys, but always need food
and medical supplies. We are very grateful to Jo White from Global Plantations who
has funded our school uniforms for the next year.
Winston Strachan, from England has
made it possible for us to have brightly coloured bedrooms. Mr Strachan has also
very kindly funded a new fire alarm system. His donation for decorating was also
supplemented by the Rotary Club of Oswestry Borderland and also Rotary Club of Walsingham
in Norfolk.
We now have a new water cooler that means that we have fresh cool water
available. This was made possible by lots of different people including The SGU Significant
Others Group, Gerry Copsey from Just Grenada and several other people.
The new water
tanks are in situ and already are making a big difference.
We would like to introduce
you to Fireman the fruit seller whose stall is on Calliste junction. If you are coming
to visit us, he is very happy to sell you fresh fruit at a very good price, so do
drop by and tell him that you saw his picture (and fruit) on the internet. He will
be very pleased!
On a not so happy note, someone broke into the hen house and stole
five of our laying hens in May. This was a bitter disappointment to the children,
as they had watch them grow from chicks and after six months of nurturing had just
started to lay eggs.
We would like to say a big thank you to each and every one of you who has visited
our website and has joined our Facebook page.
As from July, we will be selling Christmas
cards and note cards where 100% of your donation will go to the Home. There will
be a separate section on the website, but we are so proud of them that we wanted
to show them to you here as well. We will also have a limited edition number of prints
for sale too. The yellow house and Santa flying over the home original watercolours
are also for sale mounted ready to frame. Do contact Alison for more details.
We wish
you a lovely Summer and hope to see you at the Home in the not too distant future.
Thank you for supporting us,
Everyone at Bel Air
