Projects | United Kingdom | International
Sharing Life Network
Our Area
We are based in Thame, Oxfordshire, and our local area is effectively in the triangle between Oxford, Aylesbury and High Wycombe.
Services – Family Support
Family life brings many joys but also many pressures. With the demands of bringing up children, the challenges of relationships and the ever present economic pressures, parents can often find themselves in need of help and support. Sharing Life Trust has been talking to a number of people and agencies involved in working with families. As a result we are beginning to create a network of contacts and supporters so that when needs arise there can be people available to help.
The network has already been involved in helping to provide carpet for a single mum and toddler who had just moved into a new flat and an emergency food pack for another family who were having problems with receiving their benefits. Toys have been provided for some families with limited funds and children’s clothes as well.
The family support team is being led by John Hulett, one of the trustees, together with Carole Galvin, Family and Children’s worker at St Mary’s Parish Church, Katy Willis, Kate Paver and Gail Roberts who are all parents with young children themselves. We are working closely with Lyndsey Hart and the staff of the Red Kite Children’s Centre in Thame.
The network has just started and is very much in its infancy. If you would like to offer help or have ideas then do get in touch using the Sharing Lifeline or register online from the Get Involved page on this website.
Services – Counselling
All these services are intended to provide help for people who are, for whatever reason, not able to cope without a bit of a hand. The Sharing LifeLine is currently on an answering machine, which is regularly checked for messages. So please be patient with us as we try to develop this facility.
Counselling – Life
Sharing Life have teamed up with the Counsellors at the Thame Barns Centre to help provide counselling services for people who can’t afford to pay even for the Counsellor’s expenses. We’ve set aside a bursary fund which will help to extend this vital community service to some of the people who most need it.
Counselling – Debt
There’s a whole finance industry trying to get us to borrow more and more money, and a simply staggering number of people whose borrowing has got out of control. For many of them, this may end in relationship breakdown and, for some, even suicide. Our aim is to provide a steady friend who can help to empower someone in such a life crisis to work through it, regain control over their finances, and maybe also restore a damaged relationship.
The Sharing Life Trustees (Phil, Gordon, Steve) are certified as Debt Counsellors by the Money Advice Trust. Anyone worried by debt issues can call us in confidence on the Sharing LifeLine. We will provide an assessment of outstanding debt, and help design a strategy for dealing with it that is recognised by the lenders and the courts. With this scheme, the client remains responsible for following the action plan agreed, and our aim is to equip people to regain control of the situation and prevent a difficult problem
getting worse.
Services – “Good Neighbour”
‘Sharing Life Lifts’
In rural Oxfordshire, it is very difficult to get around by public transport. So we have looked to find ways to get around this problem for people who aren’t able to use a car.
At a simple level, Sharing Life Lifts can act as a clearing-house for arranging lifts for shopping or for hospital visits, for instance. We’ve also now got established relationships with the Wellington House Surgery in Chinnor and the Rycote Practice in Thame to offer their patients lifts to surgery or out-patient appointments.
We also have had cars donated, which we have ben able to place with families who could manage to run a vehicle, but who could not afford to buy one.
We also plan to develop a network of fair-priced vehicle services, so we can reduce for those struggling financially the anxiety which is generated by possibly expensive repairs and replacements.
‘Garden Parties’
No job is too big or too small! This one took five people only a morning and as you can see it’s quite a transformation.
Some of our volunteers have a passion for gardening and hearts of gold to match. If you know someone in this position, let’s see what we could do to make a difference.
It’s also good fun to get a group together for a job like this, so if you’d be interested to help, please get in touch.
‘DIY SOS’
We’ve done painting and decorating, assembled furniture, hung curtains, put down carpets, put up shelves – most sorts of DIY projects in the house. As with the ‘Garden Parties’ it’s great fun, and can make a huge difference in a short time to someone who can’t cope with the state of their place.
For gas, electrical and rigid plumbing work, we are developing a network of fitters who identify with us and will charge a reduced or fair price for the job.
If you’re struggling, or you know someone who is, give us a call. We’re always looking for volunteers, so please give us a hand when you can.
Volunteers
When we get a need, we’ll send out an email to all our supporters and volunteers. If you’re prepared to be asked, please check out the ‘Get Involved’ page. We (helpers and helped) really value new offers of practical and financial support, and we promise to not burn you out! You can always say ‘No’ if it’s not a good time for you. So if you think what we’re doing is a good thing for your community, then please become one of ‘us’…
‘Local Links’
Clearly there are going to be situations where there’s a need that we can’t meet, particularly where specialised medical, legal, financial, technical or social help is required. We are talking with other support agencies and we aim to be able to refer
people with specialised needs to an appropriate agency. We already have an excellent relationship with the Thame Citizens Advice Bureau, and are able to offer their clients some services that they are unable to provide. We’ve also got very good links with the Health Centre, and have been able to help some of their patients with practical support.
Our international partners are:
East Africa: Theodore & Christine Mbazumutima
East Africa, Theodore & Christine Mbazumutima
Theodore is a Burundian refugee who we met over Christmas 2002 while he was studying to be a pastor at All Nations Christian College in Ware, Herts. Married to Christine, he spent two years over here and returned to his wife in Nairobi, Kenya in the summer of 2004, finally relocating to his home country in 2008.
He is working with an organisation called Rema Ministries, initially on an HIV/AIDS education project among Burundian refugees in the refugee
camps of Tanzania and now amongst the returnees from the camps back in Burundi, many of whom are in transit camps in Burundi, with little hope of ever getting back to their former property.
For the last three years, Sharing Life Trust has been working with Rema UK to raise funds for the construction of a clinic in a village called Nyembuye in Rutana province, in the South East of the country near the border with Tanzania.
This location is important for two reasons: it is close to one of the returnee routes back from the camps, and it serves an area of approx 400 square kilometres in the poorest province of the poorest country in the world.
The Sharing Life Rema Clinic provides inoculations, AIDS testing, health education and primary healthcare to a population who may otherwise have had to walk for up to two days to find a clinic which may turn out to only be equipped with headache pills.
Steve and Diane were very privileged to go out in June 2009 for the official opening ceremony, and it was a joy to finally see people being treated after three long years of planning and preparation.
Theodore is financially self-supporting for this work, and Sharing Life Trust have been funding him for the last few years, working in co-operation with Rema(UK), a registered charity which is the sister organisation of Rema Ministries in Burundi.
The Rema website is currently being overhauled, but some information can be found at www.remauk.org.
If this is something which appeals to you, we would love to get some help with this from people who care about what’s happening in Africa. We’ll be posting news updates regularly.
Following a visit by Diane and a group from Thame in February 2005, we started to develop a link with Emmanuel Ministries in Calcutta through their director, Vijayan Pavamani, and subsequently with his widow, Premila, following his sad passing in August 2006.
Emmanuel Ministries works with children at risk, those infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS, migrant workers, prostitutes and drug addicts. In all of these areas they cover education, healthcare, counselling & vocational training. Their aim is to remind each individual of their innate dignity and worth – aspects which are often forgotten when people are overcome by poverty. A key strategy is to build communities of people who will support, encourage and care for one another.
Emmanuel have asked us to raise some funds to support a printing press that provides employment for former drug addicts. The printing press, established as part of the rehab process, provides opportunities for life skills training and economic stability, which in turn leads to a restored dignity and empowerment. In a virtuous circle, this in turn aids the long term rehabilitation process and helps to remove the stigma caused by drug use.
The printing press is working fine, but there’s now a need for “seed money” to allow it to expand and take on more work. Currently, the business is having to turn down bigger orders as it cannot afford to buy the required amounts of paper and materials in advance of receiving payment.
On a larger scale, Emmanuel Ministries are also trying to raise funds towards an overhaul of their Vocational Training and Rehabilitation Centre. Happily, the UK pound goes a long way in India, so we can make a substantial difference to getting these projects off the ground.