The trustees have decided to implement a short survey of BASED UK supporters with a view to learning more about your views on our communications and engagement with you. The live link to the survey can be found HERE, please do spend a few minutes completing it. The survey will remain open for approximately one month and will also be hosted on our website, Instagram and Facebook pages. Please share with friends and like-minded networks inside and outside the Bahá'í community.

Project Focus
We are fortunate to have received recent photos of programme activity from each of our 3 partners, despite ongoing restrictions imposed by the pandemic. The top 2 photos show the presentation of certificates by the Director of the Baha’i Schools to graduating teachers in eSwatini during 2020 and ongoing classes during 2021. Then the photo montage shows educational activities at the Bayan Association in Honduras where young people as well as adults save funds with their local community banking schemes. And the bottom image shows the work created by Sanshan Kindergarten teachers in Mongolia. They use online lessons, hand drawing stories and quotes, podcasts and are learning to use Photoshop to improve drawing quality.








Funding news
We were happy to receive positive feedback from 2 of our small grant making organisations:

Many thanks for the report back. It’s hard to imagine what level of difficulty the pandemic must have added to hard-working teachers’ lives, whether in eSwatini, or here in the UK, but reassuring to know that organisations like yours are helping school children, wherever they are, get the best they can from their educational possibilities.
And the cards are terrific!
All best wishes...

I’m sorry for this long overdue acknowledgment of the BASED UK grant report. This has now been read and it has been well-received. We were pleased to read about what BASED UK has managed to achieve in spite of the pandemic.
So long as BASED UK remains eligible for our support (i.e. check the online Eligibility Checker tool via our website), then please feel free to apply to us again. However, I must stress that this invitation is not a guarantee of success as competition is typically strong.
With best regards...

Having confirmed our eligibility, we re-submitted an application to both small grant organisations for financial support to our partner programme in eSwatini, Setsimbiso Sebunye Foundation. We will keep you informed of outcomes.
Further to our discussion of the UK Government funding environment reverses in the March 2021 edition of the Newsletter and our 2 year funding application for the eSwatini programme, we sadly received notification from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office that 'we have had to make the difficult decision to not progress with Small Charities Challenge Fund Round 7 of the programme'. This was especially disappointing given our application had been shortlisted by the Office. However the Government's funding cuts to overseas programmes are themselves under Parliamentary scrutiny and we will keep you informed of any policy changes.
As always, the trustees are grateful to our individual and organisational supporters who continue to lend assistance to our partner programmes under such uncertain conditions.