http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor Little Stars is a successful British registered charity that works with orphaned, abandoned, disabled and disadvantaged children in Luxor Egypt. The charity runs a clinic on the west bank and is developing a free Hadana (nursery school) for deprived and disabled children and workshops for widows and village girls leading them to self-sufficiency. en littlestarsluxor littlestarsluxor Sun, 26 Dec 2010 10:23:00 +0100 daily 1 www.LittleStars-Luxor.org   and  www.LittleStarsLuxor.com   HAPPY NEW YEAR On behalf of the children of Luxor we would like to thank everyone for their support during 2010 and wish everone a Merry Chrismas and a very HAPPY NEW YEAR.   Thank You Sun, 26 Dec 2010 10:23:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Happy-New-Year/165/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Happy-New-Year/165/   www.Littlestars-luxor.org   and  www.LittleStarsLuxor.com   2011 ASICS Fun Run through London. As a charity, Little Stars has been invited to book places on the ASICS 10 km run through London in 2011 and for the following 4 years for a very special rate.  The minimum number of places we can book is 6 per year.  The entrance fee for runners is normally very high and we are being asked for 1/10 th of the usual cost.  However, as we have to pay for all five years in one go, we are reluctant to waste funds unless we are sure that we have runners who would gather sponsorship funds for Little Stars.  If you would like a place in the 2011 race then please let us know.  When we have 6 volunteers we will make the booking.   Thank You Sun, 07 Nov 2010 05:35:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/2011-ASICS-10-km-Run-Through-London/164/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/2011-ASICS-10-km-Run-Through-London/164/   www.Littlestars-Luxor.org   and  www.Littlestarsluxor.com Magnificent Support - Thank You We would like to thank all our wonderful supporters and our hard working fund raisers for making Little Stars so successful.  We need and appreciate every one of you.  Fund Raising activities are as diverse as standing with a collecting tin or  selling of items on Ebay in the UK with Little Stars as the beneficiary right through to the making of Greetings Cards in Holland with donation of all the proceeds.    Visitors have managed to squeeze clothes for the children in their limited baggage allowance, boxes of lenses for the blind have been sent to the clinic on the West Bank and groups of elderly and disabled women are knitting blankets and hats to protect the children from the desert's cold nights.  The effort being put in for Little Stars is enormous.    ... Sun, 10 Oct 2010 12:26:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Magnificent-Support-Thank-you/162/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Magnificent-Support-Thank-you/162/ www.Littlestars-luxor.org   and  www.Littlestarsluxor.com Blankets and Hats for the children  Today we received a big box of beautifully knitted blankets and about thirty hats.  We would like to thank Linda Twamley, Angela Hunt and Helen France at Vision Support in Rhyl for all their hard work and Brian Robertson for arranging everything.  We are very grateful.  The craftmanship in the articles is superb and I know that a lot of children in Luxor will be delighted with them.             Thank You For Your Support   Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:31:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Blankets-and-Hats-thank-you/161/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Blankets-and-Hats-thank-you/161/   www.Littlestars-luxor.org   and www.Littlestarsluxor.com   Winter is Coming Winter is approaching and whereas Egypt does not suffer the low daytime temperatures that plague Europe, its nights are bitterly cold.  This is made worse where there is no heating, no glass in the windows and no warm blankets or warm clothing. The food parcels for October have already been delivered and preparations are being made for the November deliveries which will include warm blankets and children's coats and jumpers.  The clothing is already being sorted into sizes and into boy and girl parcels by Sandie our latest recruit.  Sandie is beavering away preparing an inventory of everything that is in our lockup and we are very grateful to her. Last month we gave out 5 wheelchairs to disabled people in Barat so that will have just about exhausted our stocks and new ones will soon be ordered from Cairo.    While on the subject of... Sun, 03 Oct 2010 07:29:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Winter-is-Coming/160/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Winter-is-Coming/160/ www.LittleStats-Luxor.org   and www.LittleStarsLuxor.com - Charity Expenses - The level of expenses within charities is often in the news.  This week it was announced that one very prominent charity with donations in excess of £9 million only donated around £118,000 to projects and that its wages bill alone was in excess of £5 million.  Last year another famous charity was criticised for only donating £184,000 to projects from donations of more than £1 million.      What eats up this money?  Large offices in the middle of London and a surfeit of over-paid managers could be considered largely to blame.  Oxfam alone spent more than £6 million on television advertising and those people in the street that sign up direct debit donations are not volunteers they are paid £134 per enrolled person.  That takes more than one year of donations to cover. It is still cost effective for them to do this as... Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:54:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Charity-Expenses/158/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Charity-Expenses/158/   www.LittleStarsLuxor.com   and  www.LittleStars-Luxor.org   The new Training Centre The floors have now been put in the new Training Centre and the painters have moved in.  The doors have been delivered ready to be hung and most of the kitchen equipment has been bought.  When all the workmen have finished their tasks the sewing machines will be brought from storage and put in place.       The new Centre will be a bright and cheerful place for women and girls to learn and to catch up on some of the education that they never had.  Little Stars is very proud of this achievement and believes that the Centre will be a great success.  At present we are only able to take girls from the West Bank of Luxor, but who knows what might be possible in the future. Thank You Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:13:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/The-new-Training-Centre/157/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/The-new-Training-Centre/157/ www.LittleStars-Luxor.org     and   www.LittleStarsLuxor.com   Frequently Asked Questions We have added a section to our website giving answers to our most frequently asked questions.  We believe that these questions cover most of the things that people want to know about Little Stars.  However, if you have a question about the administration of Little Stars, its projects or its sponsorship scheme that has not been covered then please do not hesitate to contact us -  admin@littlestars-luxor.org We will answer your questions and if they are ones that would interest others, we will add them to our website.   http://www.littlestars-luxor.org/FAQ.html Thank you Without you we could do nothing.   Thu, 09 Sep 2010 20:55:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Frequently-asked-Questions/156/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Frequently-asked-Questions/156/     www.LittleStarsLuxor.com Little Stars Food Parcels Three years ago, when Little Stars started to distribute food parcels, the whole operation was dealt with by an agent of the Egyptian Food Bank.  Little Stars was at that time not registered with the Egyptian Authorities and could not buy the parcels in its own right.  Consequently, Little Stars had absolutely no control over where the food parcels went or who received them and there was no contact between Little Stars and the families concerned.  It was purely a funding transaction between Little Stars and the Agent. We monitored the situation over a period of six months but it proved extremely unsatisfactory for a number of reasons but primarily because parcels were only given to women who had all the necessary paperwork and were in possession of a special stamp.  There were many women who did not have... Tue, 31 Aug 2010 10:56:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Little-Stars-Food-parcels/155/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Little-Stars-Food-parcels/155/ www.LittleStars-Luxor.org   and www.LittleStarsLuxor.com More New Fridges Delivered At the beginning of August Little Stars delivered another batch of new fridges and cookers to sponsored families with small children in the remote villages.  When temperatures exceed 40C and there are small children to be cared for, a fridge ceases to become a luxury and becomes a vital necessity.  For some families the lack of an electricity supply was a problem but this has been attended to.     Little Stars delivers chickens to all 60 of the sponsored families each month but many of the families had to cook their whole supply on the day of delivery to stop the meat rotting.  Use of the chickens can now be spread over the month.      It is only due to your generosity that we were able to do this. Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:33:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/More-New-Fridges-Delivered/154/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/More-New-Fridges-Delivered/154/ www.LittleStars-Luxor.org   and  www.LittleStarsLuxor.com Three Years of Progress and Achievement In the three years that Little Stars has been operating on the west bank of the River Nile  it has grown from a tiny association that helped another charity operate a run-down clinic  into one of the most effective charities in Luxor.  It has done all this on a shoe-string as total donations over the three years total around £175,000 (£30,000 of which is still in the bank account).  This is less than the annual rent of the London offices of some of the national charities.  How was this money spent?  As Little Stars has a policy of complete disclosure for which we have been commended by the Charity Commission, all the figures are on our website and on the Charity Commission site.  However, to put it all in a nutshell, because virtually everything is done on a volunteer basis we have almost achieved the impossible and made a difference to so... Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:49:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Three-years-of-Progress-and-Achievement/153/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Three-years-of-Progress-and-Achievement/153/ www.LittleStars-Luxor.org   and  www.Littlestarsluxor.com    . Happy Birthday Little Stars .  Little Stars is now three years old.  When we started we could not have imagined that we would have such immense support or be able to achieve so much in the three areas that we aim to make a real difference to the lives of many.  Those areas are; the relief of poverty, health and education.   In the three years that we have been in operation, Little Stars has distributed literally thousands of chickens and food parcels throughout the villages near Luxor and has provided clothing for hundreds of children.  Repairs have been made to houses and toilets added to those which were without any sanitation.  Safety has been increased with the provision of cookers so that families with young children no longer have to cook on open fires.   Initially... Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:14:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Happy-Birthday-Little-Stars/150/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Happy-Birthday-Little-Stars/150/    www.LittleStars-Luxor.org   and  www.LittleStarsLuxor.com    Latest Newsletter     Little Stars latest newsletter with details and photos of the visit to the west bank clinic of Sir Dominic Asquith the British Ambassador has been uploaded onto the main website.  Also in the newsletter are the latest reports on the family sponsorship scheme and details of the progress of the Nursery School and the new Training Centre for Women.  Please click on the link and have a look at what we have been doing on your behalf.    http://littlestars-luxor.org/luxor_news_apr10.html    Thank you Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:33:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Latest-newsletter/149/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Latest-newsletter/149/ www.LittleStars-Luxor.org   and  www.LittleStarsLuxor.com   Egyptian Registration We are delighted to announce that Little Stars' registration as an Egyptian Society has been completed.  It took fourteen months for all the checks and paperwork to be finalised but this week we were issued with an Egyptian charity number.  We passed all of the health checks on the clinic and security checks (including police checks on Trustees and staff) with flying colours.  The registration will affect only the charity's accounting procedures and not the way the charity operates.  The advantages are that Little Stars will no longer have a tax liability in Egypt which means that we can now buy that longed for vehicle without a tax burden and that we can collect funds from tourists and residents in Luxor which we had not been able to do before.  Thanks are offered to all those in the UK and in Egypt who worked so hard to bring this about. Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:59:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Egyptian-Registration/148/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Egyptian-Registration/148/    www.Littlestarsluxor.com and www.LittleStars-Luxor.org       New Cookers     During the first week of March, several of a batch of brand new cookers were delivered to sponsored families in Haja Marise in Luxor, Egypt.  Until receipt of these cookers many of the families had been cooking on dangerous open fires. We are very grateful to our family sponsors for making this possible. The cookers, which are the first that these women have ever owned, will make a real difference to their lives.            Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:25:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/First-of-the-new-cookers-have-been-installed/146/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/First-of-the-new-cookers-have-been-installed/146/ www.Littlestars-Luxor.org   and www.LittleStarsLuxor.com  Royal Ascot Every year the Royal Borough of Windsor allows charities to collect funds during Royal Ascot week.  There are usually a lot of applicants for the privilege and a draw is held in the Mayor's Parlour to decide who the lucky charities are.  We are lucky to get a place two years ago and the rules do not allow any charity to apply two years in a row.  This gives small charities like Little Stars a chance to be selected. We placed our application with Windsor Borough Council a whole year ago and the draw was held y esterday.  Today we were advised that we have been awarded a permit to collect funds on one of the Royal Ascot Days.  We are delighted as it brings the new Training Centre which will lead widows into self-sufficiency and being able to care for their children that bit closer. Thanks are offered to all who wished us well in the draw and to the Royal... Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:43:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Royal-Ascot/145/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Royal-Ascot/145/   www.LittleStars-Luxor.org   and www.LittleStarsLuxor.com   New Patron - Countess Carnarvon We have had some delightful news today when we learned that the Countess Carnarvon has agreed to become a patron of Little Stars. We are very proud to have both the Earl and the Countess of Carnarvon as joint patrons. Wonderful. Countess Carnarvon also sent a generous donation to help our work with Luxor's children. The Countess visited the west bank clinic to observe our work last November and hopes to return to Luxor for another visit later this year. Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:36:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/New-Patron-Countess-Carnarvon/144/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/New-Patron-Countess-Carnarvon/144/ www.Littlestars-luxor.org and www.Littlestarsluxor.com   Little Stars on Ebay At the request of some of our supporters, Little Stars is now a registered charity on Ebay.  The registration with Mission Fish, which is the charitable arm of Ebay, is now complete.  If you are selling items on Ebay, you can support Little Stars simply by nominating Little Stars as your favourite charity and a percentage of your sale will be donated to Little Stars automatically.  Please help if you can as every penny counts and every penny is put to very good use. There are a lot of Egyptian items offered on Ebay, if just a few sellers nominated Little Stars as part beneficiary of a sale, it would make a real difference to the lives of many children in Egypt. Thank You   Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:03:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Little-Stars-on-Ebay/143/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Little-Stars-on-Ebay/143/ www.LittleStars-Luxor.org   and  www.LittleStarsLuxor.com Wonderful Donations Little Stars has been exceptionally lucky this week as we have received a magnificent donation of £800 from Peter Allingham at Ancient World Tours.  The funds were donated by travellers on one of his most recent tours of Luxor.  We are particularly delighted as it means that more work can be carried out on the new Training Centre. In addition to this sum, we received a cheque for £100 from Barry Ross at Stuart Ross Publishing to be used to help one of the sponsored families.  That particular family, and others, are desperately in need of cookers and this will easily cover the cost of two gas cooker and gas bottles that will be delivered to Haja Marise. To put icing on the cake, we have received a box of lenses from Vision Support in North Wales.  The lenses are for those who are marginally to severely visually impaired and will be shared between the... Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:57:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Wonderful-Donations/142/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Wonderful-Donations/142/   www.Littlestars-Luxor.org   and  www.LittleStarsLuxor.com Training Centre for village women   We have been able to sign a lease on the premises above the Qurna clinic.  The space will be used to provide classrooms where village women and girls can learn skills which could lead them to self-sufficiency and an ability to care for their families without handouts.  Work will start on preparing the premises in the very near future. Classes will be offered in sewing, beading and weaving, simple hairdressing skills suitable for use among village women, animal care and cheese making, plus basic literacy where possible. We need your prayers that Allah will provide as although we have a donation of £1,000 to start the work, it is going to cost a lot more.  Investigations are being made into the possibility of applying for an EU grant. Without you none of this would be possible.   Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:07:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Training-Centre-for-Women-and-Girls/141/ http://www.blogigo.com/LittleStarsLuxor/Training-Centre-for-Women-and-Girls/141/