Cytoplan is wholly owned by a charitable foundation and throughout the year we look to do as much as we possibly can to raise money for different causes whether it be on home soil or globally. Below you can find out more about some of the annual charitable activities of Cytoplan including a summary of some of the charitable work of the AIM Foundation, the 100% shareholders of Cytoplan.
AIM Foundation
The charitable foundation that owns Cytoplan is the AIM Foundation and we are a product of their ideology. They are an organisation concerned with nutrition and health projects all over the world, as well as helping those less able to help themselves in various communities in the UK (e.g. the Essex Community Foundation).
The Bredesen Protocol™ – Reversal of early onset Alzheimer’s disease
More recently, AIM has offered substantial funding to our exciting new collaboration with Professor Dale Bredesen – and The Bredesen Protocol™ – to help bring his work surrounding Alzheimer’s to the UK.
The Bredesen Protocol™, a multi-factorial lifestyle and nutrition based approach to treating, and reversing, early onset Alzheimer’s, has so far successfully reversed Alzheimer’s symptoms in 90% of 110 people.
Projects influencing social change and policy
AIM has supported Impetus-PEF, a venture philanthropy organisation, for over six years. Impetus supports the most disadvantaged 11-24 year olds, so that they succeed in education, achieve their potential and gain employment. It achieves this through investing funds and management resources in a range of effective charities addressing this issue and build’s their management capacity to replicate their methods and reach more teenagers. For example Think Forward provides super coaches to the most at risk 14 year olds in East London schools.
From this knowledge base they are able to influence government policy in this area. The other area that AIM is trying to promote a policy change is in the measurement of Well-being Economics, as an alternative to GDP, through the work of the think tank New Economics Foundation and their Centre for Well-being. In Summer 2016 they are launching their Third Report of Happy Planet Index, which compares global inequalities of life expectancy and life satisfaction. An education programme will be delivered to young people about “good lives do not have to cost the earth”.
Projects addressing youth development
AIM has also provided funding to a selection of charities, addressing the issues facing disadvantaged young people, by raising their confidence and potential and preventing further difficulties later in their lives. AIM’s donations have gone towards:
- The Wave Trust’s work trying to address the causes of child abuse and neglect through the setting up three pioneering communities where health and social care and voluntary sector work together to identify families with the most difficulties and give parenting support during late pregnancy and the first two years of child’s development.
- The Children’s Society’s “Lifting the Lid” project, which works with professionals to help teach them to identify symptoms of abuse amongst children with learning difficulties, and also towards their “Hidden Harm” project that focuses on the damaging effects of substance abuse of parents on their children.
- The Lighthouse group provides trained volunteer personal coaches to support primary school pupils through emotional problems, who are at risk of failing academically.
- The Who Cares? Trust programme for Young Trainers supports young people by using their experience of care to prepare and deliver training to professionals who are responsible for children in the care system.
Jubilee 2000
“Jubilee 2000 was a global campaign that led ultimately, to the cancellation of more than $100 billion of debt owed by 35 of the poorest countries.”
The Jubilee 2000 campaign was an international coalition movement involving 40 countries, aiming to free third world debts by the year 2000. These debts were predominantly owed to three main groups: Western governments, global financial institutions and the World Bank.
By the year 2000 – when the campaign disbanded – 21 million people from 155 countries had signed the Jubilee 2000 petition, a quite incredible figure when considering the controversial subject matter of global debt. But despite the success of the petition and $100 billion in debt having been written off, the job was – and still is – far from complete.
In 2001 the Jubilee 2000 campaign split into an array of organisations that look to tackle the worldwide problem of Third World debts. These organisations campaign on a global level to engage the same problems with which Jubilee 2000 were concerned.
Sustran’s National Cycle Network
“Sustran’s is a leading UK Charity enabling people to travel by foot, bike or public transport for more of the journeys we make everyday.”
The National Cycle Network is a series of cycle routes providing convenient, relaxing and sustainable transport throughout the country. The initial concept was set up in 1977 by a charity called ‘Sustrans’, with the philosophy of endeavouring “to improve conditions for pedestrians and cyclists in the city”.
The first step in 1984 was to construct a cycle route along a disused railway path. This route ran from Bath to Bristol and its phenomenal success encouraged the formation of other routes all over the UK.
The network now covers around 14,700 miles around the UK and the ‘Sustrans’ website states that the system has been a “catalyst for reversing the decline of walking and cycling for almost 20 years”.
The overall vision of the network is to see 4 out of 5 journeys being made by bike, foot or public transport by the year 2020.
Essex Community Foundation<
Every county in England has some form of diversity. Although this diversity is often a positive characteristic of a society, a branch of this diversity is often inequality: where one community is affluent, another is on the verge of poverty. In Essex this is an extensive problem.
In 1996, The AIM Foundation worked alongside the CAF (Charities Aid Foundation) to start up Essex Community Foundation; an organisation aiming to meet the needs of the most vulnerable in the county by distributing grants on behalf of a wide range of donors. It was apparent that a charitable foundation could provide the whole county with a more thorough understanding of the vulnerability that some areas were enduring.
For those who wanted to help, their donations were channelled effectively, focusing on areas that were most susceptible. Essex Community Foundation now manages around 150 charitable funds and awards £2.5 million in grants annually.
Cytoplan’s Charitable work
Nepal Disaster
As you are all undoubtedly aware, on the 25th April 2015 a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal killing around 8,000 people and devastating the lives of countless more. The BBC reported that on top of these harrowing statistics, nearly 5,000 schools were destroyed leaving an estimated 1 million children unable to return to education.
Last year one of our main charitable goals was to raise £7000 to help rebuild one of the schools destroyed by this devastating earthquake. Here at Cytoplan we held a sponsored run from our offices to the top of the Worcestershire beacon, cake sales, car boot sales and various other fundraising activities to help raise as much money as we could towards this cause.
Life for African Mothers
Life for African Mothers is a Maternal Health charity aiming to make birth safer in Sub Saharan Africa, by providing medication to treat eclampsia and post-partum haemorrhage. By providing medication to treat the complications of child birth, Life for African Mothers have been able to support hospitals and health centres across Africa and see huge reductions in maternal mortality.
Last year we donated folic acid supplements to the wonderful charity and these were sent to Cameroon, on the Gulf of Guinea in Central Africa. From June 2015 LFAM have started to supply health centres in Cameroon with Misoprostol. LFAM now also help to supply and distribute vitamins, essential in the development of healthy pregnant women and their babies.
Operation Christmas Child
As we do every year – Cytoplan took part in the ‘operation Christmas child’ which is a cause providing children from less fortunate countries around the world with shoeboxes filled with toys, hygiene items and school supplies.
Local charitable work
All year round, the office also endeavours to participate in many other fundraising activities for wonderful causes, including Red Nose Day, wear pink for breast cancer, a coffee morning for Macmillan, a day for Children in Need and other bake sales and car boot sales, then most recently we cycled the length of the River Severn on exercise bikes for Sport Relief.
A big Thank You
Every customer who purchases our products, whether it be once, twice or ten times a year, is helping us to try and help those who are much less fortunate than ourselves. You may not realise it, but every time you buy from us, you are potentially helping someone else. We believe this is a sound business model: one that we are very proud of and one that hopefully, in time, will achieve the goals we have set ourselves, to improve the health of the nation and the rest of the world too! Our charitable work – both on a small and large scale – is testament to this.
We hope that this information has given you a small insight into the charitable structure of Cytoplan and the significant role it plays in the day to day running of the company.
