Our Campaigns &Charities

This is the speech I won joint FIRST place for out of over 600 entries globally in the ‘Inspire Like Churchill’ competition run by the International Churchill Society (https://winstonchurchill.org), which donated my $5000 prize money to my nominated charitable organisation Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, who have looked after both me and my sister, and where I had a 10 hour pioneering operation in January 2019 to give my paralysed face a smile.

I have since been nominated by GOSH Charity and chosen by Disney to be 1 of their 14 ‘Children of Kindness’ from Europe and the Middle East, as part of their Ultimate Princess Celebration – a global campaign championing the qualities of courage and kindness. You can read all about their campaign and my story below.

Since 2014, along with two other sponsors, Annabel’s company has been funding the education of 3 girls whose mother Poonam was widowed in Nepal, with monthly donations which are given directly to Poonam by a Swami.

The girls have been growing up beautifully over the years as you can see from the lovely photos below and one of the letters they sent Annabel.

Unseen is the UK’s foremost charity working towards a world without slavery, with its headquarters based in Bristol, the closest city to Glastonbury and The Avalon Rose Chapel®.

They run the UK Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline, support survivors through their safe houses and outreach services, offer training to businesses and statutory services, lobby the government and raise funds.

The survivors they support are all victims of labour exploitation, sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, criminal exploitation or child exploitation.

Annabel Du Boulay and The Avalon Rose Chapel® have been supporting Unseen since their first Mary Magdalene Feast Day Celebration in 2019, having made the following donations to them:

• £360 (2019)
• £1200 (2020)
• £4088 (2021)
• £1672 (2022)

Please follow the link below to find out more about Unseen, their vital work, and to make a donation.

“Together with our partners we’re strengthening women’s movements and changing the lives of women and girls around the world. We believe every woman should be able to live without fear of violence, have a say in decisions that impact her and control her own life.”

Womankind Worldwide strengthens and supports women’s rights organisations and movements with the resources they need to challenge oppression and change the lives of women, in the home, the workplace and the communities they live in.

“Led by our partners, we build successful projects together, amplify women’s voices and share what’s working. We take collective action with women’s movements to advocate for changes to laws and policies across the world that ensure women’s rights. Together we’re pushing for a world where women and girls don’t just survive but thrive.”

“Women’s rights are human rights, yet women and girls are still denied them in every region of the world. Right now, women and girls across the world face discrimination, live in fear of violence, and have no control over their lives. The reason? Because patriarchy, a system which means women hold less power and are disadvantaged, dominates in societies around the worlds. Society views women and girls as unequal.”

“A global backlash against women’s rights is on the rise. The rights of women are enshrined in international human rights law but the power imbalances that drive inequality between women and men remain in full force.”

Annabel Du Boulay has been supporting Womankind since 2009, when they kindly provided her with the women’s rights statistics that feature in the front of her women’s rights novel The Serpent’s Tale, set at the time of the witch-burnings.

Annabel and The Avalon Rose Chapel® donated £2500 in 2020 & £600 in 2021 via The Big Give to Womankind’s project with their partner Siiqqee in Ethiopia (the birthplace of the African Black Mother Goddess who is the precursor to Inanna, Isis, Demeter, Diana, Cybele and the Black Madonna) to further establish women-led co-operatives as a space for women to gain financial independence, new skills and increased confidence and status in the community.

Please follow the link below to find out more about Womankind, their vital work, and to make a donation.

Since 2001 Project Harar has worked in the poorest and most remote areas of Ethiopia to provide access to treatment for young patients with cleft lip and palate.

“Children who live in remote areas of Ethiopia already experience food insecurities due to environmental, social and economic factors. These difficulties are heightened for those with cleft lip and palate, and these children can become dangerously undernourished.”

“Babies are often unable to suckle and may be prone to choking, making breastfeeding a near impossible task. Without corrective surgery, not only will these children face malnourishment, they often go on to struggle with further developmental barriers, such as speech and hearing difficulties.”

“Our cleft programme is delivered in Ethiopia by an Ethiopian Programme team who are experts in their field. In rural Ethiopia, children with cleft lip and palate are often hidden away by their families, unable to go to school or have friends. There is a lack of awareness that a cleft condition is treatable. Project Harar strives to break social stigma, working with community leaders and local health clinics to provide information and access to treatment for cleft lip and palate.”

This charity is especially close to Annabel Du Boulay’s heart, as her son Zac was born unable to smile or feed, with a paralysed face and cleft palate.

Annabel and The Avalon Rose Chapel® donated £700 in 2020 & £600 in 2021 via The Big Give to Project Harar.

Please follow the link below to find out more about Project Harar, their vital work, and to make a donation.

“We are part of the Hamlin family of charities, which was founded by pioneering surgeons Dr Reg Hamlin OBE and Dr Catherine Hamlin AC in Ethiopia. Catherine and Reg were in Ethiopia to train midwives when they first discovered the overwhelming numbers of women suffering the terrible plight of fistula, and realised that little to nothing was being done to help them.”

“They established the first Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia in Addis Ababa to help women in need.”

“We were founded in 1968 when Dr Catherine Hamlin visited the UK to speak about the devastating impact of obstetric fistula in Ethiopia at Birmingham University. Our founders Harold Burnett and Professor Hugh Maclaren subsequently established Hamlin Fistula UK to raise funds and awareness to support the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital.”

“Today the organisation in Ethiopia has expanded and includes five regional hospitals, the Hamlin College of Midwives and Desta Mender, a rehabilitation centre for long-term patients. To date, Hamlin has treated over 60,000 women and all our centres are run sustainably in liaison with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health.”

“However there remain many gaps in maternal health service provision in Ethiopia and our support is vital to strengthening access to life changing care for thousands of women.”

“We believe in a world without maternal death, birth injuries or obstetric fistula, and support Hamlin Ethiopia to work towards this vision.”

The subject of maternal death has been a priority for Annabel Du Boulay since she carried out her PhD research in the 1990s on the reproductive rights of women in developing countries.

Annabel and The Avalon Rose Chapel® donated £506 in 2022 via The Big Give to Hamlin Fistula.

Please follow the link below to find out more about Hamlin Fistula UK, their vital work, and to make a donation.

Annabel Du Boulay’s art installation ‘The Healing Womb’ had its debut in 2012. Comprising of four archetypal paintings of the Mother of Loss, Mother of Solitude, Mother of Healing & Mother of Compassion, the installation hung in the sacred space of The Avalon Rose Chapel®, in which women gathered to share their stories in relation to child loss, childlessness, the challenges of mothering special needs children and pregnancy termination.

Annabel was inspired to create ‘The Healing Womb’ by her personal experience of mothering three children, two of whom were born with life-threatening syndromes, who she has nursed through 19 operations.

During the many months she lived on neonatal intensive care and paediatric surgical wards, she became aware of the depth of women’s suffering and untold stories, and wanted to create a sacred space in which they could share their stories and heal.

“I know what it feels like to face the fear of my child dying, to grieve for the child who I thought I would have, to feel all the conflicting emotions woven into caring for a disabled child.”

“I also know how lonely it can feel to lock our stories away, to not want to burden others with our pain, anger and despair, to tell a different story to the world when inside we are desperate to speak, to be heard and comforted.”

We invite you to attend one of our Healing Womb online workshops, funded by The Avalon Rose Chapel®, to be held and guided by experienced women who have journeyed deeply with child loss, childlessness, mothering special needs children and pregnancy termination, and to share your story within a compassionate circle of women.