Wings of Hope Children's Charity

Wings of Hope supports a school in Nemilicherry (Chrompet Township) in Chennai, southern India. The school offers education to around 360 students aged 4–16 years. The school is supported by 17 dedicated teachers who conduct lessons in Mathematics, Science and Social Sciences in English, Tamil and Hindi. A great emphasis is placed on value-based education and the school ethos adheres to the motto – ‘the end of education is character’.

Many of the students from the Wings of Hope School have achieved great academic success, with several having been awarded top marks in national exams. Many of the students have also competed on a national level in science, yoga and computer sciences competitions. The annual winners of the Wings of Hope ‘WOHAA’ competition go on an all-expenses paid trip to visit this school at the end of their fundraising programme.

The Wings of Hope ‘House of Hope’ in Malawi supports 600 young people between the ages of 3 and 20. Many of these have been orphaned as a result of the country’s HIV/AIDS epidemic. The aim of the centre is to help vulnerable young people to develop a sustainable higher quality of life within their community. As is such, the House of Hope focuses on the physical, emotional and spiritual, as well as the intellectual, needs of its students. Children are encouraged to attend school with the provision of a hot meal every day. The House of Hope runs a ‘School Support Programme’ allowing students to work towards the equivalent of their GCSEs and A-levels. The aim of this programme is to give students the opportunity to go on and undertake further education. The centre also offers nursery school facilities for children aged between 3 and 5 years and provides extensive after school care. Here, students can receive help with homework, as well as participating in extra-curricular activities. In addition to this, the House of Hope engages adults from the community in a literacy skills programme, as well as offering them tuition in practical skills such as sewing. Many of these adults are the older siblings or guardians of the orphans attending the centre.

The Wings of Hope runs a national schools competition and fundraising awards scheme called ‘The Wings of Hope Achievement Awards’ (WOHAA). WOHAA is open to all students in the UK in school years 9 to 13. To date over 475 schools and 16,000 students from across the UK have taken part in the competition, which began in 2003. The competition runs annually.

The competition works by students getting together in teams of up to 6 to design and carry out a Wings of Hope fundraising programme. The team decides how they want to fundraise – creativity and innovation are encouraged. Throughout the course of the competition the teams have access to online resources, are mentored by the Wings of Hope team and receive invitations to attend ‘industry skills workshops’ hosted by Wings of Hope’s corporate partners. At the end of the fundraising programme the teams submit a Snapshot Project to Wings of Hope, explaining what they did, how they did it and what they learned along the way. The best teams are invited to present their projects to a panel of famous judges at the semi-finals stage, held at the House of Lords. The winners are announced at the WOHAA Annual Awards

Teams are judged according to 6 winning categories. They are: ‘Most Innovative’, ‘Best House of Lords Presentation’, ‘Most Awareness Raised’, ‘Most Funds Raised’, ‘Best Speak Out (community) Project’ and ‘Overall Winning Team’. All members of the winning teams gain work experience placements with Wings of Hope’s corporate partners. The ‘Overall Winning Team’ is awarded an all expenses paid trip to India, to visit the Wings of Hope school project.

WOHAA allows students to compete on a national level, in a well-established and reputable schools competition. Supported by a network of WOHAA mentors, the programme helps students to develop outside of the boundaries of the national curriculum, improving key transferable skills in areas such as communication, leadership, teamwork, time management and entrepreneurship. WOHAA also offers students the opportunity to undertake valuable work experience in financial and project planning, fundraising, presenting/public speaking, sales & marketing, digital marketing, advertising, press & PR, journalism, events management, art, photography and creative media. On completion of WOHAA participants gain official certification and can also use the programme as an addition to CVs and UCAS applications. It also fulfills the ‘Volunteering’ aspect of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award. With access to a range of corporate partners and top professionals in a variety of job sectors, WOHAA aims to help students in the UK leave school better prepared for employment, as a way of tackling current youth unemployment issues.

Working in conjunction with corporate partners including Edelman (PR), Tata Consultancy Services (IT Services and Business Solutions) and Barclays (Finance) Wings of Hope runs industry skills workshops open to all WOHAA participants. They are often held at the partners’ offices and hosted by top professionals from within the company. Format and content varies, but in the past students have been given an insight into the relevant job sector, information about working for the specific partner organisation and skills/CV writing/interview tips.

WOHAA also runs an annual Speed Mentoring event – a unique careers event bringing top professionals from over 50 different industries to meet with WOHAA participants. The event works in the same way as speed-dating – with students getting ten minutes at an ‘industry table’ to find out as much as they can and everything that they have ever wanted to know about a specific career before moving onto their next choice. The professional mentors come from top law firms, banks, academic institutions, government, media companies, the music industry, medical service providers and many more exciting sectors. Supporters