River Cottage

We receive requests every day from charities and organisations seeking the involvement of Hugh and River Cottage. 

While we’d love to be able to support them all, this just simply is not possible.

We prefer to give our support to just one or two charities per year.

This allows us to devote the time and resources to forming real partnerships with the charities, who we believe are making a real difference to the causes we believe in.

It also means we can commit the money we raise to specific projects that we believe are particularly worthwhile.

And, as we are hoping to enlist your help in supporting such projects, it means we will be in a position to give you detailed and meaningful reports of our progress.

This year we are supporting Switchback and ChildHope.

More details on both charities can be found below. We will be updating you on the work we’re doing with them very soon.

Switchback

River Cottage is supporting Switchback – a charity generating positive change in young adults offenders as they move from prison kitchens to the workplace.

Switchback helps young adult offenders to stick to their commitment to live life differently.

By combining a personalised, intensive mentoring relationship with a practical programme, they are able to make employment a realistic prospect for this vulnerable group.

Switchback supports 18-24 year olds to build on catering skills learned in prison kitchens so that real, lasting change is possible after their release from custody.

The River Cottage team have been helping Switchback find opportunities for their trainees. We’ve arranged visits for Switchback trainees to Park Farm, hosted work placements and helped with fundraising.

We are very pleased to have had a graduate of the Switchback programme working at the Axminster Canteen for over a year now.

To find out more about the Switchback programme visit www.switchback.org.uk.

ChildHope

ChildHope is a small international charity supporting and protecting vulnerable children who are in some of the most difficult and dangerous situations in Africa, Asia and South America. 

Everyday millions of children face poverty and violence, but ChildHope believe every one of these children deserves a life free from injustice and abuse.

That’s why ChildHope support children who are:

•    Living or working on the streets or in slums
•    In prison or in contact with the law
•    Exposed to abuse at home or in schools
•    Orphaned or alone
•    At risk of HIV or denied treatment for AIDS
•    Engaged in the worst forms of child labour or sexual exploitation

Since 1989 ChildHope has provided support to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children, their families and communities around the world.

The projects ChildHope currently support give priority to prevention, finding long lasting solutions and tackling the underlying causes of poverty and violence against children. 

Thanks to the generosity of their supporters, ChildHope transformed the lives of over 31,000 vulnerable children in 2009.

Please visit www.childhope.org.uk if you would like to learn more about ChildHope’s work supporting vulnerable and neglected children.