One World Centre Isle of Man

It will soon be time for the challenge to stand alongside the 1.2 billion people across the world who live on £1/day.  From Monday 28th April to Friday 3rd May you are invited to use only £1/day for all your food and drink.

Last year with your help the Global Poverty Project

• Secured £200m investment from the UK government that could eradicate Polio within the next five years.
• Created transparency within the fashion industry that will protect the poorest garment workers in Bangladesh.
• Helped create the noise that secured a wage rise for those garment workers in Bangladesh.

Your support is vital. That’s why we’d like to invite you to take the Live Below the Line challenge again. But this time there is a big incentive.

Sign up via globalcitizen.org and you could win tickets to see Katy Perry, One Direction, John Newman, Kings of Leon or 100 other artists.

Sign up via globalcitizen.org and you could win tickets to this summer’s biggest festival – Wireless, Reading and Leeds, Bestival and many more.

Whatever your motivation, thank you for providing the Global Poverty Project with the chance to change people’s lives. Extreme poverty has halved in the past 25 years but there are still 1.2 billion people living on less than £1 a day.

Please consider taking the Live Below the Line challenge for The Global Poverty Project

Tonight at 19:30 you can hear Craig Bennett, Director of Campaigns and Policy for Friends of the Earth, UK address this challenging topic. The talk begins at 19:30, preceded by refreshments.  No charge for this event!

Six stunning presentations gave the One World Charity Challenge judges difficult decisions to make. With £11,600 to award to the charities represented, it was more than a case of which one was the winner. Indeed all teams were winners – they had beaten other teams in their own schools and colleges, and won £1,500 or more for their charities.

In the end Daisy, the pantomime cow, helped the Isle of Man College to the winner’s podium. The comic cow acted as a counterpoint to the serious nature of the work of all of the charities. And the young people had researched this work, looked at its impact, critiqued their charity and used their imaginations to create multi-media presentations. Congratulations to all involved.

At the Save the Children Awards Dinner for the Airport Christmas Tree Competition on Saturday evening, our tree was awarded Runner Up prize by the voting public.

We are basking in reflected glory as Ian Walmsley, Head of Fairfield Primary School, took our basic idea of a language tree made out of florists’ ribbon and created the amazing design you can see here. He involved children from Ballacloan and St Thomas’ Schools.  They researched Christmas in different cultures and illustrated those cultures on a series of cards.

You may have seen children from Fairfield creating the tree on the Songs of Praise programme that was broadcast on 1st December.  It was exciting to see the Festival featured.

Now we need to come up with a game plan for next year.  Any ideas?

Would you like to join in the annual stamp collection for the Leprosy Mission? Please trim your stamps, leaving a 5 mm margin.

Stamps can be brought to the One World Centre (the pop up shop in Douglas 28 Duke St BEFORE Christmas, or St Johns in the New Year), St John’s Church, The Cathedral, St Mary’s and St Matthew’s in Douglas; or to Dalby, Marown, the Abbey Church + Parish Hall in Ballasalla.  You  may find that your local church or school is acting as a collection point too.

If you would like to meet Nick Calland when he visits the Island in February, please get in touch

We’re delighted to announce that the Manx Telecom has awarded us £350 to enable us to print trail guides for the Global Gardens Tree Trail that will open in the new year in the grounds outside our office at Garey Ny Cloie in St Johns.  We hope you will come and enjoy looking for the featured trees and discovering their origins in different parts of the world.

If you are shopping in Douglas this Christmas please come to the One World Centre to find one of 11 lost sheep!  They form a trail and leaflets with the entry form will be available in Douglas library, Strand Centre and the Book Company shop, or can be downloaded from www.sodorandman.im .

There will be 23 days from the 1^st to the 23^rd of December for you to get hunting!  Each sheep will be named by the shop they are hidden in, when you have found the sheep write its name on the trail form, when you have found all 11 sheep pop your entry into the boxes at Douglas library, Strand Centre or the Book Company shop, or pop them in the door at St.Thomas’ Church.

The trail will conclude at St.Thomas’ Church  All Age Crib Service on Tuesday 24th December at 4.45pm when there will be a prize draw with prizes for first, second and third places, as well as the all age crib service for everyone to join in. Children are invited to dress as a shepherd a king or an angel for this service (this is not compulsory).

This should be a great community event and will help make shopping a little more fun as well as giving us all the opportunity to remember and celebrate the Christmas story.