Autumn Events, 2009

Task Brasil and Casa Jimmy were very busy this past November and beginning of December 09! In an effort to help raise funds for the projects in these difficult economic times, Jimmy Page himself came to Brasil for five days of fundraising events.
The outpouring of enthusiasm and excitement to see Jimmy Page and to support Casa Jimmy was gratifying to experience. There were many events, and the inexhaustible, patient and kind Jimmy Page attended them all, meeting people, supporting the youth not only in Casa Jimmy, but also some aspiring young musicians as well.

Here’s what happened at each event:

Battle of the Bands – On November 28th, The British School in Rio de Janeiro hosted a “Battle of the Bands” afternoon. Young musicians and bands all played great music—some of it not surprisingly from Led Zeppelin—and a raffle and auction for Jimmy Page signed t-shirts and memorabilia was held and hosted by Jimmy Page and the British school.

Casa Jimmy BBQ – The Chevron spouse volunteer group worked day and night to put on a BBQ at Casa Jimmy on November 29th. Many wonderful businesses and people volunteered their time and generous gifts for a raffle. People who came to the BBQ got to meet Jimmy Page, eat wonderful food, watch traditional Brazilian dance and enter the raffle. The kids got an opportunity to dance along with the professionals, had their face painted, and were always happy to yell out the winning raffle numbers along with Jimmy Page.
In addition, many people to the time to sponsor the Casa Jimmy program on a monthly basis, thereby helping Task Brasil and the children continue to live in a safe, healthy environment well into 2010.

Pocket Show – Organised by Claudio and his team from Wilson Sons supported by Carolina and Lia from Chevron. The very popular event took place at The Rock and Blues Club in the fashionable Lapa. Three bands mixed their rhythms in a special evening playing Brazilian Popular Music and Rock!

Executive Lunch – Hosted by Jimmy, the British Council Tim Flear and the Defense Attachè Willie Dobson hosted a lunch for prominent leaders in the community on - Lunch Monday, 30th November. Guests dined in a more intimate setting at the Hotel Santa Teresa, and were able to network with each other and chat with Jimmy Page in a more personal setting.

After lunch all the guests were taken for a visit to Casa Jimmy.

Casa do Saber – Casa do Sabor is a cultural/educational centre where the intention is to provide a venue for professors and students to have discussion, reflection and exchange of knowledge.   Jimmy Page was interviewed by Joe Painter, Laudir de Oliveira and Eduardo Ponti in the presence of a small audience and gave an us an insight into his musical background, inspirations and plans for the future. Jimmy went on to answer many questions that the enthusiastic audience were keen to ask! Te event was organised with the essencial help of Susan Mace from Britannia English School in Rio.

Task Brasil raised over R$ 70,000 with its fund raising activities, and more money was pledged by companies such as Chevron, who plan to help with constructions and repairs of the buildings in 2010.

Thanks to all the donors, sponsors and volunteers who’ve made it possible for Casa Jimmy to continue its work for the street children of Brasil.

In these difficult economic times, we are even more grateful for the generosity of the people and businesses of Rio de Janeiro and all over the world.
Task Brasil wishes everyone a happy, healthy holiday season.

Summer events 2009

Casa Jimmy has in September 2009 hosted groups from Glamorgan University, British Airways and the Royal Navy, who have all spent time with the projects and been a great source of practical help to us.

The project has also been receiving a great deal of support from Chevron's employees and their spouses who have been organising loads of fun events for the children and helping them to learn English.

This summer Task Brasil maintained the tradition of attending The Carnaval del Pueblo and WOMAD. Both these events benefitted from good weather and were a great success in terms of raising awareness of our cause and raising funds. If you would like to get involved with next year's summer events please let us know. We need volunteers to man the stalls and to help with setting up materials. Furthermore, if there is an event that you know about that you think we should attend, please get in touch with us.

The Carnaval del Pueblo is London's largest Latin American festival. Every August Burgess Park gives itself over to London's Latin American community in a spectacular display of music and colour. Fortunately, this year the sun shone all day, so nothing was able to dampen the atmosphere! The carnaval attracts an audience from every part of London's Latin American community (many of whom are surprised by the sheer size of the event) and provides a perfect opportunity for Task Brasil to inform the wider public of our work. This year we had a great team of volunteers who did a fantastic job collecting email addresses and selling Havaianas and jewellery to raise funds for our work.

Earlier on in 2009

We are delighted to announce that approximately US$ 8,000 were raised through the sale of items on eBay's Missionfish, both the UK and the USA:

Some of the items were a Gibson Epiphone Guitar, Hippie Fest signed by Jack Bruce of Cream, Flo and Eddie of The Turtles, Joey Molland of Badfinger, Jonathan Edwards, Melanie, Eric Burden and the Animals; "A matter of Life and Death" limited edtion, double picture disk. 12" vinyl LP's signed by Iron Maiden members: Adrian Smith, Bruce Dickinson, Dave Murray, Janick Gers, Steve Harris and Niko McBrain; Genesis - Anatomy of a Tour pop up book signed by Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, and Tony Banks; a Custom made ESP Guitar Signed by Joe Walsh (The Eagles), Jimmy Page and Slash. Custom-made in Japan; and much more... We are grateful to the artists and everyone who made this event possible.

Duncan's Three Peaks Challenge
The Three Peaks Challenge is a mountain endurance challenge in Great Britain in which participants attempt to climb the highest peaks of each of the island's three countries. Whilst the challenge has no official rules or time restrictions, many participants try and complete it within 24 hours – and this is what our long standing supporter Duncan Innes and his colleagues at Marriott Harrison did in August this year.

The mountains climbed, in height order are Ben Nevis in Western Scotland (1344 m), Snowdon in North Wales (1085 m), and Scafell Pike in North-Western England (978 m). In all the challenge involves some 42 km (26 miles) of ascent and descent, with total travel approaching 765 km (around 475 miles).

After the challenge Duncan said:
“Well, we did it! Despite all three summits being in total cloud, some challenging conditions and definitely the worst homemade sandwiches on the planet, all three peaks were successfully climbed.”

Duncan Innes is a longstanding and active supporter of Task Brasil. Duncan first got involved with Task Brasil in 1995 and has, until recently, provided a great deal of support as a Trustee, advising Task Brasil and visiting our projects periodically. Everyone involved with Task Brasil is hugely grateful to Duncan for all he has done over the years, and mightily impressed by his fundraising and hill-walking abilities!

Duncan's efforts have so far raised nearly £5,000 for Task Brasil projects. You can still sponsor his effort by visiting Duncan's Justgiving fundraising site

Three Peaks August 2008 Challenge
         

On the weekend of the 20th – 22nd June, 2008, 13 UK-based Accenture employees joined a team from the BP HR Operations and SAP Program to climb the three highest mountains in England, Scotland and Wales. In total, 26 colleagues from BP, Accenture and IBM took part, with the objective to complete the challenge within 24 hours and in doing so, raise over £5,000 for three charities nominated by BP Operations & SAP Programme team members. One of the selected charities was Task Brasil

Fundraising Effort

Although the challenge itself took place in June, the fundraising effort began in earnest several months before the big weekend. The team organized a car wash at the BP office in Staines, England, during which around 60 cars were washed raising £400. A raffle and auction with prizes generously donated by the Operations & SAP project team members raised over £2000. In addition a sweepstake on the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest and a pub quiz raised an additional £375. These efforts, when added to donations from friends and family, BP's “Match Giving Programme”, and Accenture’s “Giving Programme” raised an impressive £10,000, doubling the initial fund raising target. Andrew Dickinson, Manager T&OP, who helped organise the event was thrilled with the money raised by all involved “The fund raising has helped bring the whole team closer together and the final total of £10,000 is a phenomenal effort. The money raised is going to make a tangible difference to three very worthy causes, with the funds targeted to help improve schooling for children in Africa and South America.”

The Challenge

When the big weekend arrived, the team set off from London on the 20th of June and traveled by bus to Wales where they spent the night preparing for their challenge by debriefing on their route and resting for their fast approaching adventure. On Saturday morning, the team woke early to be greeted by heavy rain and very poor visibility (conditions the team would have to endure the whole weekend). The first challenge was to ascend the 1,085m up Mount Snowdon which was accomplished in a brisk 3.5hrs. After a quick lunch, they traveled north to Cumbria to begin their 978m ascent of Scafell Pike. The team did not get off Scaffell Pike until around 11pm and as the darkness set in for the night the team returned to their coach and set out for Scotland and the tallest and toughest challenge of them all....Ben Nevis. After a rather uncomfortable few hours attempting to get some sleep the team rose at 5am, and began their 1,344m ascent of Ben Nevis. The team successful completed the challenge at 7.55am in a time of 23hrs 55mins.
The team celebrated with a well deserved drink after their descent. Tony Marchak (Vice-President, BP HR Operations) summed up the team’s relief after they successfully completed the challenge and said “I want to congratulate you on completing the Three Peaks Challenge. I realise the demands of this challenge and the determination and effort required to climb the three mountains in 24 hours. This achievement is even more impressive given that you had to endure such terrible weather conditions throughout the entire event. You should be very proud of yourselves. We are all very proud of you.”

Task Brasil would like to extend our huge thanks too all in the Accenture Team:

Adam Krajewski, Ajay Parmar, Andreas Binnmyr, Andrew Dickinson, Dirk Reichling, Colin Sloman, Jonny Dighe, Ken Grant, Laura Watt, Liz Puttick, Megan Kimbell, Peter Choate, Siobhan Pollock,

Great Capital Run 2008

July saw this year’s great capital run in London’s Hyde Park. Task Brasil supporters Kevin Tredea , Ruth Weyman and Richard Ashby were kind enough to run for us and raised much needed funds for our work in Brasil.

Kevin said:
“Over the years I have always impressed with how Task Brasil have managed to help the street children and teenagers who live and work on the streets of Brazil and so

I felt that this year I will try to raise some money for the Task Brasil charity by doing the 10K Great Run in Hyde Park London.
The day went fantastically and I managed to run it in 53 minutes beating my last run by 6 minutes. I really hope to run for task Brasil again in the near future. “

Ruth said:
In May, when I started this (fundraising) page, I'd just come back from a trip to South America, including Rio de Janeiro. Lots of people come back from longer and more involved trips having witnessed first hand the poverty of Brazil's street children and wanting to do something to make a difference. I returned from my short holiday having witnessed the wealth of the other half and it's the juxtaposition that made me want to raise as much as I could. Imagine seeing a child begging in Chelsea. We only saw one child living rough because the streets of Ipanema where we were staying were lined with expensive houses behind security gates and shiny glass shop fronts. Seeing him curled up asleep one night on a piece of cardboard outside our hotel made up my mind to do something to donate to a charity that would help him.

According to Richard:
"This may not be climbing Everest, but for someone who never runs anywhere unless there's a ball to chase or a bus to catch I assure you this is tantamount to temporary madness. (...)
It was a lovely morning in Hyde Park and I think the race went about as well as I could hope, being rather an amateur at this sort of thing. I finished in 45mins 12seconds. This would have been enough to get me a podium finsh, had there been 605 podia..."

A big thank you to all 3 runners!!!

If you are interested in running for us we would love to hear from you! We have places in next year’s London Marathon so, if you are feeling really ambitious, please complete the form here and send it in to us!

Notice from Task Brasil
Task Brasil had an incident relating to its water supply at Casa Jimmy recently. If you require details, please contact us..

No ultimo dia 28 de julho 2008 houve um incidente na Casa Jimmy envolvendo a companhia de fornecimento de Água, CEDAE. Colocamos-nos a disposição para quaisquer esclarecimentos e reiteramos o nosso compromisso em realizar nosso trabalho de encontro ao estatuto desta organização, ao ECA e os mais elevados princípios. Aproveitamos para agradecer seu contínuo apoio à Task Brasil , em benefício às crianças e adolescentes carentes.
Atenciosamente,
Task Brasil