Changing Lives Sarah Vermont

Google Maps, for some unknown reason, doesn't show the lovely oasis of the Cluny Gardens Allotments in Southend-on-Sea as green. Don't they realise that the Benedictine monks of Prittlewell Priory gardened there for 400 years until Henry VIII scattered them to the four winds? The current King of the Cluny Gardens is Tony Wagstaff who is a Reparation and Community Practitioner with Southend's ISSP (Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme)...and, in ordinary lan...

In Kolkata in India the virus is spreading rapidly through the city. Many people are out of work and there are many newly homeless families living on the street with nothing to eat. There have been two catastrophic cyclones and widespread flooding in the region. The government is increasingly concerned about what is going to happen to the 'Covid orphans'. In this final podcast about Future Hope we hear from founders, Tim and Erica Grandage, CEO, Sujata Sen, School Pr...

Education is a human right but one that millions of children are still denied. By providing underprivileged children with an education Future Hope School in Kolkata gives them the key to unlock opportunity; a chance to get a decent job, to escape poverty and to support their families & communities. In Episode 2 of the Future Hope story we hear from three students who are achieving their dreams and also the amazing plans for the future from the founders, Tim and Erica Grandage, and ...

There are 100,000 street children in Kolkata. At the railway stations children on their own take refuge on lit platforms at night, hoping to protect themselves from abuse. During the day they make a few rupees by rag picking, working as coolies or in roadside food stalls. Many are ill and malnourished and often they become addicted to glue, which helps them forget the trauma of their life. Over the past three decades the lives of 3,000 of these children have been transformed by a ...

Salt marshes fringe much of the world’s low-lying coasts and they provide the perfect natural defence to the battering of the sea and increasing storm surges as a result of climate change and rising sea levels. A day doesn't seem to go by without news of a further crumbling of the coastline so I thought it would be a great idea to talk to Dr. Ben Evans who is a coastal geomorphologist at the University of Cambridge with a particular interest in coastal wetlands and salt marshes. H...

Petra Potasse is a talented shipwright...a rare female in a male world. She lives on her beloved 118-year old Dutch barge, the 'Cornelia Anna', and she sails to where the work is. Since she came over from the Netherlands 13 years ago, leaving a career as an English and Arts and Crafts teacher behind, she has worked on several projects up and down the East Anglian coast as lead shipwright and as teacher and trainer, with the Mayflower Project, to a younger generation of boatb...