Saturday 16th May saw Trustees gather for our Annual General Meeting to review our work over the past year and to look forward to another year of providing essential support to people living in Chechnya and the surrounding region.  Rachel Gillies, who has been a Trustee since 2005 was elected as Chair for the forthcoming year, and we are happy to say that another year’s report and accounts have been compiled by our auditors and approved by the Board.

We would like to welcome another addition to our Board of Trustees.  Alice Lagnado has worked extensively as a journalist in both Russia and Chechnya, including working as The Times’ Moscow correspondent.  She is currently the Assistant Editor of ‘One in Seven’ magazine, the publication of RNID.  It’s great to have her on board and all of the Trustees and staff are looking forward to tapping into her skills and experience!

This coming year, and in particular the next few months are looking incredibly exciting.  We’re thrilled to be welcoming Daimohk back to the UK for their first tour since 2006.  Their tour includes performances at the prestigious International Eisteddfod in Llangollen – a real indication of how much artistic respect Daimohk have gained in their own right.  We are still in the process of confirming dates, but we will be posting them up as soon as we have them available.

We also hope to be welcoming our incredibly hard-working Little Star psychosocial workers to the UK once they have gained Visas.   Please see our previous post on our hopes for their visit.  We will be working to develop a Little Star website to enable both English and Russian speakers to follow their work.  More information on that once it is up and running.

You may also have read in a previous post our hope to take some of the skills and expertise of Little Star workers to assist with much needed Psychosocial work in Gaza.  We are presently seeking seed-funding for this venture.

And finally, on the subject of funding, we’re happy to report that we have had a successful year of fundraising.  However, with money being diverted away from the Caucasus to other regions, with so many funding organisations suffering due to the recession and of course the fact that people in the Caucasus are not immune from the economic crisis, it is imperative that we receive funding to continue in our work.  Please consider making a donation to PBUK to support us in our peacebuilding efforts.

Best wishes,

Rachel Gillies (Chair)

In peace and friendship,

Staff and Trustees of Peacebuilding UK