How we work

The Andrew James Walsh Memorial Trust is an entirely voluntary-based charity. We work with a number of schools and parishes in India and Africa to ensure that all of the money we raise goes directly to helping the children in their communities. Our projects share the same objectives. We strive to advance education and to relieve financial hardship. Although our projects work through Catholic institutions, the children we help come from different faiths and backgrounds.

We were introduced to the effective work of Monsignor Selvaraj by Andrew�s aunty. Through community programmes, Mgr Selvaraj tries to improve the lives of the poorest families in his parishes in Madurai , southern India. We pay for tuition centres so that the children have somewhere to study and we provide supplementary tutoring.

We also fund a further five tuition centres based around Madurai with the help of Fr. Andrew Pastore and Fr. Pushparaj. Fr. Andrew, a former priest in Andrew's home parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, recently moved to India and linked the Trust to a similar project run by the Schoenstatt fathers. We now fund the tuition of nearly 200 children in the Schoenstatt centres.

Fr. Peter Conniffe is the parish priest at Our Lady of Dolours R.C. church, Kersal and he is a close family friend of one of our trustees. Fr Peter kindly introduced the Trust to his fellow Servite priests in Africa. The Servites (or the Order of the Servants of Mary) have missions in Uganda, Swaziland, Mozambique and South Africa. Each mission supports a school that has a large number of orphaned and vulnerable children. We work to improve the schools� infrastructure, their pedagogical equipment and in time we hope to be able sponsor the most disadvantaged children within their communities.

The Andrew James Walsh Memorial Trust is managed by its trustees in accordance with its deed . We are registered as a charity in England and Wales. Our registered charity number is 1119268. Our most recent Annual Report will be able to download by the end of 2008.