International arts festival to benefit international development

Howard Lake | 21 June 2006 | Newswire

International development agency World Emergency Relief (WER) has been named global charity partner for a new international arts and music festival being staged this summer in Royal Tunbridge Wells.
The EDF Energy SpaFest is the first festival of its kind to be staged in Kent, spanning two weeks from 21 July to 6 August and incorporating a huge range of live music, dance, comedy, arts and community events.
As global charity partner, WER will benefit from fundraising at some of the festival’s highest profile events, including the opening concert being headlined by R&B singing sensation Craig David.
This is a great opportunity for us,” says Alex Haxton, director of operations at WER and a resident of Tunbridge Wells. The Festival organisers have really taken WER’s aims and values to heart, and are committed not just to raising funds for us but also to raising awareness about poverty in developing countries and what we’re doing to help address it.
Given Tunbridge Wells’ water-based heritage as a Spa town, we’re particularly keen to highlight the urgent need for more water sources in many African countries, and will be weaving this theme into many of the SpaFest events where we have a presence.”
As part of SpaFest WER will be staging its very first ‘Fashion with Compassion’ (FWC) evening on Saturday, 29 July. This is a new initiative developed by the charity to raise funds and awareness through a high profile fashion event, showcasing designer clothing and accessories from some of the town’s top outlets.
The SpaFest programme will also include a photographic exhibition of images taken recently in Ugandan IDP (internally displaced persons) camps, where WER works with local partners to provide food, medicine and water supplies. The photos were taken by Jason Alden, a UK-based news photographer and Linda Morales, a young photographer from the Fotokids project in Guatemala which is also supported by WER.
According to EDF Energy SpaFest organiser Ian Bowden, charity partnership is intrinsic to the festival’s ethos of ‘participation for all’. A festival of this size and scope has the potential to reach many people,” he says. We think it’s really important to use that as a power for good, locally and globally. WER is a perfect global charity partner because it’s small, direct and very effective, which people like. Hopefully it will inspire people who become aware of WER’s work through SpaFest to continue to support it after the event.”
For more information about the SpaFest programme and to book tickets visit www.spafest.co.uk. For more information at WER visit www.wer-uk.org.
ENDS
For more press information contact CB Communications: Veronica Newport on 01363 866927 or Carole Pendle on 0776 846 2601
Notes to editors
1. EDF Energy SpaFest charity partners include WER as the global charity partner and Kent Air Ambulance as the local charity partner.
2. About World Emergency Relief (WER)
International development organisation World Emergency Relief (WER) is an UK registered charity, set up in 1995 and based in London. WER supports and funds 40 projects in more than 20 countries around the globe. A non-denominational Christian charity, its mission is to give young people in the developing world a living chance by addressing the root causes of poverty through its projects and programme work. In 2004/5 the charity was able to source and distribute donated goods for humanitarian relief and development purposes to the value of £32,493,110, including the provision of charitable grants.

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.