Posted on May 14, 2020, by & filed under News, NSPCC / JCB Campaign.


By email – Key contacts are

Chair of Trustees – neil.berkett@nspcc.org.uk

Chief Executive – peter.wanless@nspcc.org.uk

Director of Fundraising and Engagement – josephine.swinhoe@nspcc.org.uk

By post – Addressed to one or more of the above, ℅ NSPCC Head Office, Weston House, 42 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3NH

 

You can also email help@NSPCC.org.uk with the person to whom it is addressed being identified in the Subject line.

 

 

[Date]

 

[Person to whom email is addressed]
42 Curtain Lane
London EC2A 3NH

 

Longer Sample Letter

Dear ...,

I am a great admirer of the work of the NSPCC. There can be little doubt that over the years it has made a significant difference to the lives of very many children.

I am of course fully aware that it has to limit its operations to the United Kingdom. Bur surely its ethos, summed up in the words of its strapline “Every Childhood is worth fighting for”, applies in equal measure across the world.

I am writing to you as a member of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions UK (ICAHD UK) to express my concern about the impact which the demolition of houses in the occupied territories of Palestine is likely to be having on the children living there. Surely to witness the destruction of their home and its impact on their family must leave an emotional scar, if not physical harm, which will damage the remainder of their childhood and in very many cases of their lives.

I have little doubt that you are familiar with the major part played in many of these demolitions by bulldozers supplied by JCB. The knowledge that these demolitions are contrary to human rights and to international law, and the harm being done to children, appears to be of no account to the company or to its owners and executives.

I am very well aware of the range of issues which may face charity trustees. Naturally they need at all times to see the funds raised by the charity as high as is possible so that they can maintain their work at the greatest possible level: at no time can this be as important as during this terrible time of Covid19 when their income is likely to be reduced while the demands on them will be increased. At the same time, the trustees must maintain the values of the charity to ensure its integrity and transparency and its reputation with the public.

It is against this background that I am asking you and your fellow trustees to reflect critically on the role played by one of your major donors, the Rt Hon Lord Bamford, DL, who has been Chair of JCB since 1975, and to the part played by JCB bulldozers in these house demolitions together with the impact which they will be having on children. If you are to maintain the high values set by the NSPCC and the support which it provides to all those seeking to safeguard the well-being of children,  then in my view you have little principled option but, however regretfully, to ask Lord Bamford to withdraw his support for your charity,

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Shorter Sample Letter

Dear

I was saddened to learn that a respected charity like the NSPCC takes money from JCB, a company which profits from cruelty to children in Palestine.

You must be aware that JCB has been selling its bulldozers to Comasco, the Israeli company which carries out the state’s policy of removing as many Palestinians as possible from their own lands.

More than 3,000 children have been made homeless in the last few years according to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights, and JCB has been responsible for many of these demolitions.

Palestinian children are suffering the trauma of seeing their homes disappear and they bear those scars for years, if not forever. Schools and clinics have been destroyed while JCB have further impoverished the children’s families by destroying animal shelters, water sources and by uprooting hundreds of olive and other fruit trees.

On 3 November 2020 Israel carried out its biggest demolition in a decade, demolishing Khirbet Humsah, an entire village in the northern Jordan Valley, rendering 74 people homeless, including 41 children. JCB bulldozers were photographed at the scene.

Addressing the European Parliament, B’Tselem’s director Hagai El-Ad called it a “war crime”.

“Tens of structures, people’s homes and livelihood, were destroyed,” he said.

“Humsah is not alone. For years, Israel has been targeting dozens of Palestinian communities throughout the occupied West Bank.

“It is a criminal policy of forcible transfer. Israel is turning the lives of these communities into a prolonged nightmare, in order to force them to give up and leave.”

NSPCC does a great job for children in this country but it’s time to review the relationship with JCB. You cannot continue taking this money and keep your reputation intact.

Yours sincerely,


Additional sample letters are available here.