News & updates

Medicins Sans Frontiers

June 2020

Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, Medecins Sans Frontiers launched projects in over 60 countries to cater to the demands.

This was integrated in several different ways:

Training and hospital management

Treating patients with the disease

Distribution of equipment

Support with hygiene

Mental healthcare

Simultaneously, more than 450 projects that were operating before the pandemic were also affected.  Along with treating patients with Covid 19 their ongoing work is essential for those in war torn countries and where medical assistance would not otherwise be available. 

WaterAid

July 2020

Wateraid has now completed the hygiene facilities at Tubeserea and the works at Gabagaba are continuing.

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The facilities at Tubusurea include:

7 Ventilated improved Pit (VIP) latrine toilets, four of them for girls and include ‘girl friendly’ stalls to enable them to manage their menstruation.  The remaining 3 are for the boys usage.

An adjacent 9,000 litre hand washing station which is filled by a roof catchment from a nearby classroom

The innovative design of the dual sliding “VIP” will increase the life span of the toilet significantly.  Previously, a “VIP”    latrine pit would fill up within 2 to 3 years and would either have to be renewed at another location or desludged, which is       a very expensive in rural communities and rarely available.  The design allows for the toilet to be moved across two adjacent pits.  The second pit is blocked off until the first pit is full.  Once full, the latrine is moved across to the second pit and the first pit is blocked off, allowing the contents to decompose, which can then be safely removed.  Once the second pit is full, the cycle repeats.  Additionally, pits that lined with concrete can have a life span of 25 to 30 years.

By providing these facilities for the girls, they can now enjoy safe, clean sanitation facilities.  This in turn leads to higher attendance levels at school, breaking the cycle and gender inequality and better educational outcomes.

Pet Rescue

October 2020

Keeping pets out of the pound system in the first place is wonderful way to keep them safe.  In May, Pet rescue initiated the      launch of a new pilot called Home2Home to assist pet owners needing to rehome their pet, which occurs via the PetRescue platform.

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During this pilot phase, they are refining the framework and seeking input from members and also organization overseas that run similar programs.

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Since the launch, 16 dogs and 8 cats have found new homes, safely and in a stress-free environment.  Additionally, this helps to keep pets out of the pounds and rescue groups can then focus on the pets that have nowhere else to go.

Welfare Hope for Horses

August 2020

In 2007, three horses named Mayfield Indigo Rose, Rafki and Spaggles were rescued from a property in Kyneton, which was known as “Paddocks of Death”.  Fortunately, the RSPCA successfully had the owner prosecuted and the horses were surrendered to Project Hope.

After an initial rehab, the foals went to rural homes to “grow”, and are now well balanced and happy and have adjusted to their nurturing lives with Hope Project.

Australian Wildlife Conservancy

September 2020

Performing controlled burns, AWC began implementing EcoFire in the Kimberleys more than a decade ago, over 3 million hectares of the central Kimberley in early dry season.  Neighboring pastoralists and indigenous communities have also been closely involved in design and delivery of the program.  Some of the outcomes and benefits are:

Incidence of late dry season fires has halved

Areas brunt in late seasons fires has been reduced from 90% to 20-40%

Populations of many small mammals in Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary have substantially increased

Stabilization of endangered Gouldian Finches over the last ten years

Populations of threatened Purple-crowned Fairywrens have increased by 180%

The results are delivering substantial benefits for native plants and animals and also successfully controlling fire and feral animals.

PetRescue

December 2019

Pet Rescue has achieved some amazing results in the last twelve months and saw 60,633,967 profiles being viewed on their website.

Here are some of the other effects from their continuing work:

69,070 rescue pets were rehomed.

650 pets adopted on National Pet Adoption day in February

$512,00.00 of food was donated and distributed. 

Pet Rescue is incredibly grateful for the support they have received from corporate partners such as Woolworths,                  Mars Petcare and PETstock.

WaterAid

December 2019

Bunderra Foundation continues to support the work of Water Aid.  Due to their programs and operations, their global impact last year resulted in:

Household Members

385,000 household members have access to clean water

433,000 household members have decent toilets

1,503,000 household members with good hygiene

Students

206,000 students having access to clean water in schools

182,000 students have access to decent toilets in schools

695,000 students with good hygiene.

Through Healthcare Centers

1,238,000 people through healthcare centers have access to clean water

1,080,000 people through healthcare centers have access to decent toilets

991,000 people through healthcare centers with good hygiene.

Australian Wildlife Conservancy

December 2019

Australian Wildlife Conservancy continues its work with rare and endangered species.

For the first time in over 60 years, central Australia is once again home to Numbats.  In December 2019, 10 numbats were relocated from Scotia Wildlife Sanctuary in far western NSW and after receiving a thorough health check, were each released into their own shelter of a hollow log at Newhaven Wildlife Sanctuary.

All of the numbats were fitted with radio collars and will be monitored in the coming months.  Pending the success of this trial, more numbats will be moved to Newhaven and with stage 1 of the fenced area, which covers 9,400 hectares, this will support more than 200 numbats.

Engineers Without Borders - ATEC Biodigester

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October 2019

Recently, in October 2019, directors Trish and Rene were fortunate enough to visit with some of the recipients of the ATEC Biodigester in Siem Reap, Cambodia. 

It was wonderful to see the huge improvement the Biodigester makes to everyday life and the positive effect that it has on the environment. 

The families were very hospitable and very appreciative of the Biodigester and the changes that it had made to their lives.

Since our first donation, the Bunderra Foundation has now provided 10 biodigesters to Cambodia.

Guide Dogs Graduation Ceremony

March 2019

Guide Dogs Graduation Ceremony

March 2019

In March we were lucky enough to be invited to and attend the Graduation Ceremony for five up & coming Guide Dogs. It was so great to witness these five beautiful dogs receive their very first harness at this special ceremony.

The five future Guide Dogs include two black dogs named Harry B and Lady, and three yellow dogs named Odin, Jane and Banner. Each dog has spent five months undergoing intensive training at the Guide Dog Centre learning the skills to guide a person with sight loss safely.

“We have a wonderful group of graduating Guide Dogs who will soon be matched with a person in the community who has sight loss and is waiting for a Guide Dog. Once they are matched, we spend several weeks working closely with the person and their Guide Dog to ensure they form a strong bond of trust, and the handler has knowledge and skills to work with and care for the dog,” said Eddie Sullivan, Guide Dogs NSW/ACT’s Training and Dog Supply Manager.

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“It takes $50,000 to breed, raise and train each Guide Dog so the presentation will be a celebration of the dedicated training over the past two years to get these life-changing dogs to the all-important working stage of their life. With the demand for Guide Dogs’ services increasing due to growing numbers of people having trouble getting around as a result of sight loss, we’re incredibly grateful for the support we receive from the community,” Mr Sullivan said.

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As guests at the graduation Ceremony, we were treated to an opportunity to watch the Guide Dogs demonstrate their skills, enjoy a puppy pre-school session, meet a new litter of Guide Dog puppies and hear from Guide Dog handlers about how their lives have changed for the better.

We had a wonderful time at the ceremony, celebrating and encouraging the new group of graduates. We are very proud to be supporting such a wonderful organisation and we look forward to hearing more news, when each of these amazing dogs are placed with their new owner/handler.

Grapefruits for OzHarvest

December 2018

The Grapefruits were in abundance at Bunderra Farm’s orchard recently. We therefore took the opportunity to donate a huge amount of the fresh fruit to our friends at OzHarvest.

Bunderra Foundation Director, Trish Richards and Administrator, Allison David, personally delivered the huge supply of Grapefruits to the OzHarvest warehouse at Alexandria, Sydney.  We look forward to hearing how they were able to use these Grapefruits to assist those who need that bit of extra  help, especially at this time of year.

Engineers Without Borders - ATEC Biodigester

December 2018

As explained above, Bunderra Foundation made a significant donation to Engineers without Borders for their ATEC Biodigester project. We are very pleased to announce the successful installation of 5 biodigesters in the Kratei Province.

Five families have significantly benefited from these installations, each of them contributing $100 directly towards their own system. All five of these customers relied solely on firewood for their cooking but with a biodigester, every customer will have enough gas for all daily cooking needs.

For households ATEC’s experience is that we won’t 100% replace the use of wood/charcoal as this will still be used for special cooking occasions (eg grilling fish as doing this with wood/charcoal tastes better or when their relative gathering at once for any occasion) but it’s going to replace the vast majority of cooking needs.

Every customer will need to feed their biodigester daily with fresh manure in order to achieve optimum gas production. This incentivises farmers to make use of manure which then outputted as bio-slurry which can be used as fertiliser to achieve 10-36% on their crop yield.

Bunderra Foundation is every proud to have been involved with this project. It is a very satisfying feeling knowing that we have been able to significantly help five families with their day to day lives.

Water Aid - Keeping Girls in School (Papua New Guinea)

November 2018

The initial project is implemented from July 2017 to June 2020 through a consortium of international and local civil society organisations. The focus in Papua New Guinea is in Kairuku-Hiri, Goilala, Gabagaba and Kwikila locations and the project’s main objective is to upgrade school hygiene facilities to ensure girls have access to safe, private and hygienic spaces for menstrual health.  

In Papua New Guinea there were critical delays in the implementation of activities and planned infrastructure to improve the water and sanitation facilities. Facility designs were complicated and made more time intensive than expected, due to the area’s high water table and the low quality of some of the schools existing infrastructure. However the project continued to move ahead and Girls now have the information and hygienic facilities needed, to manage their periods and seek appropriate care for their reproductive needs.

While completing baseline work in the schools, WaterAid is also focused on identifying new partnerships and collaborating with the Department of Education on expanding WaterAid’s tools in the Curriculum. The strength of this growing relationship has been positive and has been seen through 2 other schools reaching out to WaterAid after the Department of Education shared the teacher training tools with them.

Wateraid also promoted a roundtable on creating a community of practice around Menstrual Health. This was attended by a diverse group of stakeholders including representatives from the Department of Education, Pacific Women, the Digicel Foundations, UNICEF and many others.  The event was highly engaging and the discussion and ideas are being used to inform a PNG Menstrual Health community of practice to be led by the Department of Education with the support of other government departments and WaterAid.

Bunderra Foundation looks forward to hearing about further updates and works in this important space, as we progress through the project timeline.

StreetWork's Social Return and Impact

October 2018

StreetWork seeks to give at-risk youth the same opportunities as their peers. To encourage them to grow, to achieve their dreams and to develop as a person with high self-esteem.  Although their focus is firstly and lastly on the teens they support, they are often asked to account in economic terms for the work they do.  PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) carried out a 12 month study of StreetWork's impact and reported some very impressive findings:
·         over 90% of StreetWork's funds go directly into funding its youthwork programs.
·         StreetWork's programs are very effective, with a turnaround rate of over 93%
·         for every dollar spent by StreetWork, there is a $16 return to the community.

Bunderra Foundation is very proud to support such an important and charitable organisation. Please visit their website to read more about the work they do, the results they achieve and the actual stories of the youths they have helped.

PetRescue - The Impact of Kindness

October 2018

PetRescuse has recently celebrated its 14th birthday and is Australia’s most visited charity website.  With the kind support and generosity of Individuals, Companies and Corporate Sponsorships PetResuce is able to deliver millions of dollars worth of goods and services to community rescue organisations and helps to save the lives of thousands of rescue pets every year.

Through their website 456 enquires are sent every day and an amazing 225 pets are adopted every day!

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Please visit their website to learn more about their news, happy stories, vital programs and services. While you are visiting perhaps you may take the opportunity to make a donate yourself or even begin to search for your new companion, there are thousands of cute little souls listed who need a loving home.  Together we can help to create more positive outcomes for homeless pets.

Guide Dogs NSW/ACT -
Annual Puppy Play Day

August 2018

Guide Dogs NSW/ACT hosted Puppy Play Day at The Guide Dogs Centre as a special thank you for wonderful Puppy Pals who assist and support the cause.

Despite the rain, it was apparently a brilliant day! Guests enjoyed a fun-filled day of activities including tours of The Guide Dogs Centre kennels, a special Sponsor Puppy parade starring Chase, Everest, Marshall, Luna, Rocket and Star (who all just celebrated their first birthdays!), and a guest appearance from Australia’s Got Talent finalist and Guide Dogs NSW/ACT client Matt McLaren.

Bunderra Foundation Directors were unable to attend the Puppy Play Day this year but are pleased to hear that the event was a great success. We look forward to hopefully being involved next year.

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To donate to Guide Dogs NSW/ACT or  keep updated on their news and events, please visit their website below.