Rachel's Skydive for Network 81

Hello,

Thank you very much for taking the time to visit this webpage.

Network 81 is a national charity, registered since 1986. It is dedicated to helping children with special educational needs and disabilities all across the country. Network 81 works with families to get the right help for their children at school. They help children from age 2 to 19 all across England and Wales. In recent years it has lost all of its funding and so I want to help raise money for the charity by jumping out of an aeroplane on 15th June 2012.

Day to day the charity deals with children with many differing needs, varying from Dyslexia and ADHD to Severe Autism and Severe Cerebral Palsy. The help they require is unique for each child and can vary from advice about what support is available and what they are entitled to, to providing long-term legal expertise. Alongside helping parents on an individual level, often with multiple children in a family over many years, Network 81 also trains parents and workers from other charities to support families. They are made aware of education and disability law so that they know what support schools should provide.

The charity is very small in terms of people involved in the charity, and so it does not have people employed to fundraise. Everyone who helps with the charity does so in order to directly help with the families, and due to the lack of funding, does so as a volunteer. There are several other charities out there who deal with children with special educational needs and disabilities. But Network 81 is unique in that among many other things; they visit families in their own homes (whereas other charities never visit the home and most contact is via telephone), attend school meetings, and attend tribunals for a considerably smaller charge as the parent representative (less than 5% what other charities charge). More than three quarters of the families Network 81 helps simply could not afford to use these other charities. Network 81, therefore, is the only way they can help their children receive the education they deserve. Of those families Network 81 helps that could afford to pay these other charities, they choose Network 81 due to its reputation. Network 81 deals with on average per year over 500 children, many of which are new cases which are personal referrals from existing families.

Unfortunately, due to the complete lack of funding, the charity is not in good shape. The charity currently per year receives less than £5,000, all of which goes towards the cost of running a national charity with a national helpline. The ideal plan for the charity would be to train more people like my mother to cover more families across the country. In order to run the charity as it was envisioned it would need an awful lot more than £5,000 a year. The original plan for the charity was for it to be a network of trained supporters across the country.

Due to this I would very much like to help raise some money for Network 81 as I strongly believe in its work. I would like to raise as much money as I can to help the charity keep going, ideally a minimum of £500. So please give generously! I am paying fully for the skydive, and for a video to be taken, so you can rest assured that EVERY SINGLE PENNY you donate will go directly to the charity... and that you will get to see the wonderful video of me screaming loudly!

You can donate via this webpage by clicking on the Give Now green button at the top of the page, or you can give the money directly to myself or my mother and we will add it to the total on this page.

Thank you very much,

Rachel.