Shine Charity ball, Chesterford Research Park raises over £20K for underprivileged African children

Nov. 1, 2011 - PRLog -- Shine – the charity whose mission is to help alleviate poverty in Africa by tackling one of its root causes – illiteracy - held their fund raising ball at The Nucleus, Chesterford Research Park recently. (http://www.thenucleus.uk.com)

163 people attended the James Bond themed black tie evening which included reception drinks and a sumptuous three course dinner.  Guests were entertained throughout dinner by a magician and caricaturist with the festivities continuing well into the early hours with a live band, casino and auction.  The auction items, all of which were donated by local businesses and supporters of Shine included a week’s ski flat rental in France, a signed and framed football shirt from Arsenal’s latest star, Jack Wilshere and one month’s gym membership at The Nucleus fitness centre at Chesterford Research park.

Shine's Reading Academy in the shanty town of Kalikiliki in Zambia currently teaches around 100 orphans and vulnerable children how to read and write.  These children would otherwise have no access to education.  Shine's two-year educational programme targets the poorest, most vulnerable children from the local township and provides them with a strong foundation in literacy and numeracy.  After graduating from the programme, Shine places its pupils in nearby mainstream schools and pays their school fees to ensure their continued education.

The programme provided by Shine (http://www.shinecharity.org) is completely free and includes a daily meal for every child, which is often the only meal they receive during the day.

The money raised by the Shine Charity Ball at Chesterford Research Park will build another set of classrooms at Shine’s Reading Academy in Zambia.  The new classrooms will enable the school to expand, allowing up to 250 children access to education.  The construction project will use around £14,000 of the £20,150 raised on the night, and will provide jobs for local men and women.  The surplus will be used to recruit more teachers from the local community to cater for the increased pupil numbers and to meet the other running costs of the expanded school.

Vineet Bhatnagar, founder of Shine commented of the occasion: “Shine is very grateful to the organisers of the Ball and to everyone who donated so generously, allowing the charity to help empower even more underprivileged children in Zambia to overcome the poverty into which they were born.”

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About Chesterford Research Park: Chesterford Research Park (http://www.chesterfordresearchpark.com) is ideally situated within easy reach of the City of Cambridge, Stansted airport and the M11. The Park also operates a taxi service and regular shuttle buses to and from the railway station at Audley End, from which London is only an hour away. From its position within the South Cambridge Biotech Cluster, Chesterford Research Park is perfectly positioned to offer companies of all sizes attractively located, state-of-the-art facilities.