Achievement Award - For parents

This page was actually compiled by two parents whose daughters competed in WOHAA in 2007. They have prepared the questions that you, as parents, are most likely to ask. They have also answered these questions with their experience.

Find out more about what students do here and what sort of timeline the award is running from. The prizes that are offered to winners, are incredibly unique, find out more about them here. Resources like the Welcome Pack for entrants, posters, gift aid forms etc are available at the Wings of Hope Resource Centre. It is important to keep checking the website for WOHAA news. Participants will all be receiving e-mails, but if you want to know what is going on – without wanting to ask them – then you can check the website.

Why WOHAA?

While fundraising for Wings of Hope, our children gained a sense of what a difference they each could make. It was brought home to them that the small amount of money they had to raise to sponsor one child would change his or her life and that of their families for ever.

Wings of Hope encouraged the girls to think big. They undertook projects which they would not have considered under any other circumstances. Each project involved learning a new set of skills. They had to confront issues like financial management, health and safety issues and deal with the stresses placed on any group organising an event.

The prize is certainly worth striving for. The trip to India offers a unique opportunity to teach at the school and see where the money they raised is going. Interacting with the children enabled them to see first hand how important it is not to become overwhelmed by their own problems.

What makes WOHAA special is that it appeals to students’ altruism, not just their self-interest.

Fundraising

How much support and help do students need?

Ideally schools will mentor the groups taking part in WOHAA, offer practical advice, establish rules for good money management, and diffuse some of the tensions that may arise within and among the groups. Allowing students scope to carry through their ideas independently means they learn a lot from their successes and failures, but parents of course are ultimately responsible for their children and their fundraising ventures, and will need to help with banking arrangements and any health and safety issues.

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Are there legal restrictions on fundraising activities?

Under-16s are not allowed to fundraise on the street (unless they are taking part in an organized procession); fundraising in public spaces such as parks or pedestrian areas requires a local authority licence; third-party liability insurance may be required by venues hosting charity events. There is more about Health & Safety on the students’ dedicated website www.wohaa.co.uk

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Snapshots Projects

‘The Snapshots Project is the students’ record of their fundraising activities. The Wings of Hope requires parents to send in a letter about their son/daughter’s experience of WOHAA when they submit their Snapshots Project. The letter is a good way of feeding back to WOHAA about your experience as a parent and how, we hope, you have seen your children develop. Check the timeline or the news link to confirm the deadline for the Snapshots Project.

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Semi-finals at the House of Lords

If your children are shortlisted to go through to the Semi-finals, they will be invited to give a 5-minute presentation at the House of Lords to a very prestigious judging panel. The award timeline means Wings of Hope can only give relatively short notice of being short-listed, so it can be a rush to prepare the presentation, which needs to be on Powerpoint. WOHAA emails students about file formats, etc., but technical problems can occur, so make sure your son/daughter reads the information carefully and has copies of their presentation available on the day.’

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Final

The final is a glitzy Award Ceremony. Previously, it was held as part of the Annual Gala Ball, but this year, the arrangements maybe slightly different. Keep checking the news section on the website for details.

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Work experience placements

Winners of awards are offered fantastic work experience. Once they do win, they must be as flexible as possible to which work experience they are offered. They will be asked for their preferences, but placements also depend on the date availability of the firms and the winners.

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Trip to India

The trip to India is fantastic. As soon as the winners find out they have won, they will be given a pack about the details of the trip: flight details, accommodation arrangements, local addresses, emergency help, food and medicinal advice etc. There will be a couple of meetings for the parents and students with the Wings of Hope team who will explain everything in detail.

Whilst in India, the conditions were great. They were really looked after – all travel arrangements were made with the same driver. They stayed in serviced apartments – so they could all be together in the room. Food was excellent, and none of them got ill at all. The Wings of Hope are very careful with food arrangements. We had very good communication with our daughters when they were out there – with local internet connections, their mobiles and the Wings of Hope representative’s Indian mobile

At the school – the girls were treated extremely well. They were asked before they left to prepare some material they could teach to the younger students. Topics they chose to teach were English food, Britain in general, disease and their hobbies. They did an assembly to the whole school with props and all. The girls had to take most of their material from here.

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