Aerial Services Scotland Blog

Dear R,

I’m writing to you from East Africa, where lions are facing a crisis that could put them on the path to extinction.

Widespread habitat destruction and poaching have dramatically decreased lion populations in the wild. Over the last 100 years, almost 90% of the world’s lions have been killed off.

We must act now, before wild lions are gone forever. That’s why we’ve set a goal to welcome 3,500 members by midnight on Friday, 25 February. IFAW members are instrumental in helping us to protect lions and other vulnerable animals around the world. Your support could help bolster our work to expand lion habitat, train wildlife rangers who protect lions from poachers, and stop the illegal wildlife trade. When you make a special gift today, you’ll get access to exclusive IFAW membership benefits.

R, lions are being poached for their bones and teeth by ruthless wildlife criminals. They’ve lost 80% of their natural habitat, which forces them out of wild areas and into conflict with farmers and villagers. These clashes often lead to more lions being killed. At this rate, wild lions could be gone in 30 years!

Your support could help IFAW provide more equipment and training for rangers, who work tirelessly every day to remove traps and snares hidden in the bush.

These cruel devices are one of the main ways poachers capture and kill wild lions. They can cause deep wounds, amputations, and deadly infections for animals caught in them and are a major reason lions are at risk of extinction.
Gif of animal trap
Rangers remove snares like the one above from protected national parks daily, but there are always more the next day—it’s a seemingly unending process. To protect lions and other animals in Africa’s national parks, rangers need help: They need supporters like you.
make a special gift
On behalf of the IFAW team here in East Africa and around the world, thank you for helping us stand up for lions and other animals in jeopardy.

With gratitude,

James Isiche
Regional Director—East Africa, IFAW

Dear Robert,

Apartheid is happening again.

Amnesty International has gathered significant evidence that Israel is perpetrating the crime of apartheid, throughout Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories and against Palestinian refugees.

We simply cannot allow this to continue. We need your help to campaign for a future where Palestinians are no longer subjected to state-sponsored discrimination and the organised theft of their land and resources.

Will you donate £150 to support our campaign to dismantle apartheid? By donating today, you could help Amnesty International UK to put pressure on governments, businesses and others with influence to demand that Israel ends its measures of discrimination, segregation and oppression against Palestinians.

Palestinian families are randomly, yet regularly targeted by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). The IDF uses live ammunition, stun grenades, rubber bullets, pepper spray and armoured vehicles spraying jets at any time of the day or night.

No Palestinian is currently safe from discrimination, violence, arrests, torture and death.

Please join forces with Amnesty International UK and millions of other Amnesty International supporters around the world today. You can help change the world. Will you please give £150 now.

Tawfiq Abu Jame’, a Palestinian father, told Amnesty International:

“…I had resigned myself that there would be no justice in my lifetime for the crime committed against my daughter Asil (killed in an IDF bombing raid) and many other Palestinians.

No justice will be achieved through Israeli courts. Victims like us have become faceless numbers, but it’s time for our voices to be heard and for our suffering to be recognised.”

Thank you for everything you do for people suffering brutality, injustice and discrimination. Please support the Palestinian dream that apartheid will end in their lifetime.

Dear Robert,

Today is Internet Safety Day, and you can do something vitally important to protect children from dangerous online pornography.

If you haven’t signed our petition to ensure that age verification is included in the Online Safety Bill when it comes to Parliament, then I would urge that you do so today.

If you have signed up to our campaign already, then thank-you. Your voice is being heard and your letters and e-mails to MPs are already making an impact.

The Digital Minister today announced that there will be a new legal duty requiring all pornographic websites to put age verification measures in place to ensure their users are 18 years old or over.

This is great news – and it’s thanks to the representations you have made. But we need to keep the pressure up to make sure that the measures are robust and that they are enforced as soon as possible.

Once you sign our campaign petition, Premier will send it directly to your MP, asking them to include the promised safeguards in the Online Safety Bill and protect children from accessing pornography.

Up to 62% of children aged 11 to 13 are seeing pornography for the first time in their lives – without even looking for it or wanting to see explicit material. This must stop.

Yours sincerely,
Peter Kerridge
Chief Executive, Premier

Dear Robert,

Last year we faced ongoing challenges, but thanks to you, we achieved some incredible things. Your support has changed the lives of thousands of children around the world who had no-one to protect and care for them throughout difficult times.

Together we’ve made sure they face better, brighter futures and with you by our side we will keep doing that for the year to come.

You have transformed these lives, and so many more, over the last year and we hope you feel as proud of that as we do.

Find out more about the impact of your support here and keep an eye on the website and our social media channels for more stories from the children whose lives you’ve changed.

Thank you for everything you do,
Helen
Supporter Engagement Manager
Railway Children

Dear Robert,

“If I wasn’t sponsored with Compassion, I would be dead right now,” says Jey from Kenya.

Jey grew up in Mathare, a community in the Kenyan capital where crime and drugs are commonplace. Jey was vulnerable for the simple reason that his family lived in poverty. As their family situation worsened, Jey began begging on the streets and it wasn’t long before he was stealing and dealing drugs.

At the age of nine, he was thrown into prison for stealing a purse on the streets of Nairobi.

In jail, Jey called out for help to the only person he could think of – God – and his prayers were answered. On his release, he was registered into the Compassion project at his local church.

He remembers the day he was registered vividly: “Everyone was rejoicing,” Jey says with happiness. “Compassion gave me the life that I didn’t have.”

Pressure on the family was immediately eased. Sponsorship meant school fees were paid, uniforms were provided and Jey could access health check-ups. Extra supplies were even sent home for his family.

“The first time I heard the words ‘I love you’ were from my sponsor,” he says with a smile. “These things started speaking into my life and encouraging me. My sponsor gave me love, education, and the word of God.”

Jey has now completed a degree in youth ministry but he’s never forgotten that frightened little boy he once was. “We didn’t have role models in Mathare Valley, so I want to be a role model for the kids there,” he says passionately.

As a DJ, Jey now uses music to connect with young people and share his faith. It’s his way of thanking those who supported him and ensuring their legacy lives on.

“Sponsorship is about more than just the money. It’s about God calling you to change a life.” Jey, Kenya

Thank you for partnering with us to change the lives of children in poverty.
Yours in Christ,

Justin Dowds
Chief Executive
Compassion UK and Compassion Ireland

Hi Robert,

Warmest greetings from South Sudan! It’s a joy to be writing to you today about our work to tackle malnutrition among children and babies, and to thank you for all you’ve shared.

I’m also thrilled to share uplifting news from your neighbours in other parts of the world. None of this work could have happened without wonderful people like you. I hope you’ll feel so proud of what we’ve achieved together.

As you may know, malnutrition can leave children weak and very vulnerable. For under-fives, it can limit physical and mental development in ways that cause life-long suffering.

That’s why we and local Christian Aid partners set out to support families in two regions of South Sudan, where conflict and climate chaos have left tens of thousands of families without enough food, and many young children dangerously malnourished.

Families across these regions are now armed with practical knowledge on nutrition, and the vital importance of breastfeeding for babies, and a varied diet for children.

Families, like Adut Anet Achen’s (pictured), are also more able to make better diets a reality – for example, through growing a wider and more nourishing range of crops like sesame and sorghum.

‘With my farming activities, I am able to pay school fees, buy clothes for my children and also pay for their medical treatment,’ she says.

This is what your loving kindness helps achieve. Together, we uplift each other.

Yours sincerely,

Charles Taban
Christian Aid South Sudan

Dear Mr McIver,

Thank you so much for your kind donation of £75 to Amnesty International UK.

Your gift could help Amnesty International UK fund crisis investigations using satellite imagery, studying verified video footage and finding ways to speak to journalists and human rights defenders on the ground. So we can keep identifying human rights abuses and holding those responsible to account – even when it’s too volatile for us to be on the ground.

Without people like you, we simply wouldn’t be able to carry out our vital research into human rights abuses, or continue campaigning for better treatment and protection of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK and around the world, so thank you.

The people of Afghanistan have the right to live, work and learn in safety and with dignity – no matter their age, gender or religion. Together, we’re helping to expose attacks on basic freedoms and are showing everyone – even groups like the Taliban – that we won’t let them get away with violating people’s human rights.

As part of our movement at Amnesty International UK, you’re helping to make change happen. We will do everything in our power to fight the erosion of human rights in Afghanistan and around the world, and we are so grateful that you make our vital work possible.

Thank you once again for your generosity.

Sacha Deshmukh
Interim CEO, Amnesty International UK

Dear Robert,

I hope you’re keeping well and thank you so much for your latest donation. We are immensely grateful.

Last year, Practical Action launched a scheme in Bangladesh to reduce the amount of plastic waste in the local environment and oceans, whilst supporting low-wage rubbish collectors to ensure they benefit via the creation of new jobs, improved working conditions and higher wages in Faridpur and other urban areas.

The project was designed with a Finnish environmental clean-up company, a Faridpur-based community organisation and the Danish Government, using cutting edge technology to collect and process low-grade plastic from the most polluted parts of the Padma River and in landfill sites, marketplaces and from households. Low grade plastic from rivers is one of the biggest contributors to plastic pollution in the seas and we hope to be able to repeat this approach in other polluted rivers across Asia. 

We can of course only develop these ground-breaking projects with your support, which we greatly appreciate.

With very best wishes from us all at Practical Action – and thank you again.

Ian Derbyshire

Dear Mr McIver,

Firstly, I would like to wish you a very Happy New Year and I hope that you had a restful Christmas without too many changes to your plans.

In 2021 The Salvation Army helped tens of thousands of people across the UK from a variety of backgrounds, all facing challenging circumstances. We helped to put food on the table of struggling families, provided lunches and companionship for lonely older people, gave employment advice to people struggling to find jobs and helped homeless people take their first steps to rebuilding their lives. And at Christmas our efforts increased to ensure no one was alone if we could offer friendship, no child was without a present if we could provide one and no homeless person at our centres was without a hot meal.

You will see below that I have included a thank you video from our service users who you have so kindly helped to support. I hope that their messages show you just how grateful they are of your support. I have also included some heart-warming stories and information on how you can write your Will for free with The Salvation Army this New Year.

While there are still many unknowns ahead, please be assured that The Salvation Army will be here to support vulnerable people throughout the year ahead. I look forward to sharing more stories with you about the good work we undertake in our local communities across the UK.

With warm regards,

Lieut-Colonel Dean Pallant
On behalf of The Salvation Army

Dear Robert

Thank you so much for your generous gift of £75 from Aerial Services Scotland Ltd toward the work of Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF). All of us at MAF are so grateful for your continued prayer and financial support. Your partnership with us enables our life transforming flights to reach some of the world’s most isolated communities.

In December, MAF flew the last Kilimatinde mobile clinic of 2021 in Tanzania. Each month, MAF flies medics from Kilimatinde Hospital to the remote villages of Dabia, Chidudu and Mahaka. This three-day clinic provided vaccinations & post-natal care to women and their children.

Thank you for helping MAF demonstrate that people living in remote places are valued and worthy of love and care.

With warm regards
Paul

Paul Dunning
Partnership Manager & Speaker
MAF UK
Office: (01303) 850 950
Direct: (01303) 851 946
MAF UK | First Floor | Castle House | Castle Hill Avenue | Folkestone | Kent | UK | CT20 2TQ