New foundation launched by Blue Sky Group International

Howard Lake | 21 January 2004 | News

Security and risk management company Blue Sky Group International has launched a foundation to assist national and international charities delivering humanitarian assistance in hostile environments.

Blue Sky Group International (BSGI) was the first security and risk management company in the UK to have an ethical oversight committee, and has already operated in Aceh, Indonesia where they were the first private company to run an international peacekeeping operation. Blue Sky provided the overall security planning and operational infrastructure for cease-fire monitoring activities in 2002 and 2003.

Robert Partridge, commercial director at Blue Sky Group International, explained: “Establishing the Foundation is a logical next step for a company like ours. When we established the company three years ago we decided that our founding principles should incorporate an ethical oversight committee that would look at all the work we undertake and ensure that they comply with our strict codes of practice. For this reason we invited Martin Bell, former journalist and UN special envoy, and Sir Rupert Smith, former UN commander, to sit on the committee which they gladly accepted.

“We are already in discussions with a number of humanitarian aid agencies, including the UN, to identify the best way in which we can help them assess and manage risk to deliver aid more efficiently.”

The Blue Sky Group Foundation is able to draw on the experience of the whole Blue Sky Group, which has worked in a range of environments conducting risk assessments and security assistance. These include Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uganda, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Thailand, Turkey and the West Bank.

The Foundation does not accept grant applications, but instead provides its services to voluntary organisations on a non-profit basis.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.