Newsletter Spring 2025 - Dear Friends & Supporters

Dear Friends & Supporters

We hope this finds you in good spirits and enjoying this beautiful Spring. We welcome this light and colour at a time when there is so much conflict, and awful challenges facing so many people around the world.  

We are the only charity in the UK that helps performers outside of the UK. This makes our task of raising money so important as cultures around the world are attacked, women are silenced, artists struggle.

Our Next Fundraising Event

We are delighted to invite you to celebrate all things SafetyCurtain. on Sunday 1st June at Cubana, 48 Lower Marsh, Waterloo SE1 7AB.  2 minutes walk from Waterloo Station, 5 mins from Southwark Station.  We will have lunch from 12pm – 2pm and then retire upstairs to enjoy happy hour cocktails, a raffle and live music with Cuban musicians. Tickets are £50 per head to include a drink on arrival. It would be helpful if you could please book through JustGiving on our website as we get the GiftAid, and you can leave your name and message with the reference “Cuban Lunch”. We can take payments on the door on the day too.

Unable to attend? Then make a donation instead. 

JustGiving will give us the Gift Aid & PayPal is an option too.

What impact does your donation make

We have longstanding relationships with theatre practitioners in Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ukraine, Palestine, Gaza, Lebanon, Turkey, Syria and more recently we have taken requests from Cuba. We are hearing from them that our small grants are life saving, and life changing.

Cuba have been struggling for many years with aggression and sanctions from the USA. Fortunately, one of our Trustees, David John, has links to artistes in Cuba and recently we helped a theatre company to replace their props and puppets damaged in a storm. Our Chair, Jo Cameron Brown has forged a link with Ballet Folklorico Cutumba de Santiago, and we look forward to helping them keep their cultural dance alive for the next generations.

Theatre Company  - 5cs – in Kenya sent us this recently:

“…we are happy to share that we did receive last week the grant and are so excited and happy that it has always come at our deepest points of needs….. everything is being double taxed...no one is spared including artists and poor people...the cost of living has taken another level”. 5Cs Theatre for Change and Development, Kenya

Fundraising News

We ended last year with a successful response to the Big Give Campaign, raising £5K.  Thank you to all of you who contributed and to the Reed Foundation who matched our funding which has given a boost to 2025.

Acting For Others continue to award us and their generous donation makes a big difference to our survival as a charity. We are so very grateful to them including us on their list.

We have had the good fortune of being chosen by Headlong Theatre to be their social justice partner. They generously produced and directed a classy short film for us, something we could never afford, and you can see this on our website. It features our new President Lucian Msamati, Jeremy Swift, Adrian Lester and our Team, inviting people to support our small charity. We look forward to future brainstorming sessions with Headlong and are so grateful for their interest and support.

Look forward to seeing you in June for food, fun and music!

Meanwhile, good health and best wishes

Sincerely

Jo Cameron Brown, Chair

Mary Roscoe, Vice Chair

Maria Vasiliou, Secretary