Post by althea on Jan 19, 2011 18:40:55 GMT -5
James is supporting yet another charity. It is the Sharpe Foundation
Actors from the much-loved historical TV series Sharpe have set up a charity in Hackney to help some of the world’s poorest children.
Daragh O’Malley, who played Sharpe’s right hand man, Sergeant Harper, in the long running drama, formed The Sharpe’s Children Foundation after witnessing extreme poverty while filming abroad.
The charity, which is based in Great Eastern Street, Shoreditch, aims to use Sharpe’s worldwide popularity to highlight child poverty and raise money for education projects through donations, merchandise sales and events.
It has the backing of Bernard Cornwell, author of the 23 Sharpe novels, along with many of the show’s stars, including heart throbs Sean Bean and James Purefoy, and Oscar-winning writer Julian Fellowes.
O’Malley said: “At various locations where we filmed Sharpe we saw some horrific human tragedies. In Ukraine we saw children abandoned into the squalor of crumbling orphanages where mentally disturbed children had remained chained to steel beds for years on end. In India we saw smiling children, many disabled, living without hope or love and eking out a futile existence on the streets. Of those that miraculously survive life on the streets only one in ten will ever learn to read a book or write their name.
“The Sharpe’s Children Foundation will give these children a voice and will show the world what can be done for very little. ”
The organisation sponsored the first Street Kids World Cup last year and is now focusing on building a school in Rajasthan, India.
For more information about The Sharpe’s Children Foundation, go to www.sharpeschildren.com.
www.sharpeschildren.com/index.php?PageID=1007
The Sharpe’s Children Foundation was conceived one sunny afternoon in a small open tent on a remote and barren Indian landscape by the banks of a drought ravaged river. There,In between filming, a group of actors were taking refuge from the seething heat and watching little children bathing in a river of stagnant sewage... The actors fell unusually silent and stared quietly and slowly - in total disbelief at the scene that lay before them – it was then, at that moment in time, we realised that something had to be done.
On returning to London, sceptical that the world could support another charitable initiative in what were becoming increasingly troubled economic times, we investigated how best we could help the children we left behind. We studied The Millennium Project, signed by every state in 2000, which promised Universal Primary Education for every child by 2015 – but it isn’t happening. As we delved deeper and deeper into the charity sector it became clear that the need for an initiative such as The Sharpe’s Children Foundation was quite compelling.
And so, twenty months later, with enormous help and encouragement from many wonderful people, none more so than Bernard and Judy Cornwell, The Sharpe’s Children Foundation is launched this evening with a simple mission - Just as Bernard Cornwell’s creation, Richard Sharpe, rose from the gutter to achieve high rank in The British Army, it is The Sharpe’s Children Foundation intention, through it’s Sharpe’s Shelter initiative, to give children of perhaps a lesser God the same opportunity.
The Sharpe’s Children Foundation firmly believes that education is the most durable world currency and can be the most lethal and effective weapon in the on going war against child poverty.
...
In Ukraine and Turkey we will upgrade facilities and conditions in orphanages.
In Istanbul, London, Lisbon and Bradford, cities where the Sharpe TV series was also filmed, a Sharpe’s Shelter will not follow a full education curriculum but will rather be a welcoming place of refuge for troubled children of the street of all ages.
Sharpe’s Shelters is a very unique, simple and workable model which can be repeated throughout the world
Thanks to Holly for posting this over on Live Journal.
Actors from the much-loved historical TV series Sharpe have set up a charity in Hackney to help some of the world’s poorest children.
Daragh O’Malley, who played Sharpe’s right hand man, Sergeant Harper, in the long running drama, formed The Sharpe’s Children Foundation after witnessing extreme poverty while filming abroad.
The charity, which is based in Great Eastern Street, Shoreditch, aims to use Sharpe’s worldwide popularity to highlight child poverty and raise money for education projects through donations, merchandise sales and events.
It has the backing of Bernard Cornwell, author of the 23 Sharpe novels, along with many of the show’s stars, including heart throbs Sean Bean and James Purefoy, and Oscar-winning writer Julian Fellowes.
O’Malley said: “At various locations where we filmed Sharpe we saw some horrific human tragedies. In Ukraine we saw children abandoned into the squalor of crumbling orphanages where mentally disturbed children had remained chained to steel beds for years on end. In India we saw smiling children, many disabled, living without hope or love and eking out a futile existence on the streets. Of those that miraculously survive life on the streets only one in ten will ever learn to read a book or write their name.
“The Sharpe’s Children Foundation will give these children a voice and will show the world what can be done for very little. ”
The organisation sponsored the first Street Kids World Cup last year and is now focusing on building a school in Rajasthan, India.
For more information about The Sharpe’s Children Foundation, go to www.sharpeschildren.com.
www.sharpeschildren.com/index.php?PageID=1007
The Sharpe’s Children Foundation was conceived one sunny afternoon in a small open tent on a remote and barren Indian landscape by the banks of a drought ravaged river. There,In between filming, a group of actors were taking refuge from the seething heat and watching little children bathing in a river of stagnant sewage... The actors fell unusually silent and stared quietly and slowly - in total disbelief at the scene that lay before them – it was then, at that moment in time, we realised that something had to be done.
On returning to London, sceptical that the world could support another charitable initiative in what were becoming increasingly troubled economic times, we investigated how best we could help the children we left behind. We studied The Millennium Project, signed by every state in 2000, which promised Universal Primary Education for every child by 2015 – but it isn’t happening. As we delved deeper and deeper into the charity sector it became clear that the need for an initiative such as The Sharpe’s Children Foundation was quite compelling.
And so, twenty months later, with enormous help and encouragement from many wonderful people, none more so than Bernard and Judy Cornwell, The Sharpe’s Children Foundation is launched this evening with a simple mission - Just as Bernard Cornwell’s creation, Richard Sharpe, rose from the gutter to achieve high rank in The British Army, it is The Sharpe’s Children Foundation intention, through it’s Sharpe’s Shelter initiative, to give children of perhaps a lesser God the same opportunity.
The Sharpe’s Children Foundation firmly believes that education is the most durable world currency and can be the most lethal and effective weapon in the on going war against child poverty.
...
In Ukraine and Turkey we will upgrade facilities and conditions in orphanages.
In Istanbul, London, Lisbon and Bradford, cities where the Sharpe TV series was also filmed, a Sharpe’s Shelter will not follow a full education curriculum but will rather be a welcoming place of refuge for troubled children of the street of all ages.
Sharpe’s Shelters is a very unique, simple and workable model which can be repeated throughout the world
Thanks to Holly for posting this over on Live Journal.