A great effort all round on Movember. Some were a bit more whispy than others but the Mo's on display were certainly distinguished in every way. The blocked plughole in the bathroom sink on 1st December was probably a welcome sight to some of the participant's partners though!

A former client of ours, Claudia Orrell, decided to jack it all in and go and work for VSO in Thailand, helping Burmese refugees.

The organisation she has been working with in Thailand is called Peace Way Foundation. When we discovered that they were trying to run their operation using computers from the Middle Ages, we decided we would help by donating a few newer ones. We're pleased to hear that they are now happily installed in the Peace Way Foundation offices and working like a dream.

You can find out more about them here (maybe one day we should build them a spanking new website, too!) or you can join their Facebook group here.

We have to tell you about Magic Breakfast because it's such a great idea.

Carmel McConnell, who started the project, became aware that many of our children in areas of London were going to school without having had much to eat at home. The result was that they were rocking into school with no energy and no ability to concentrate on what they were being taught. Kind of hard to believe in one of the leading capital cities of the world. It just goes to show that Jamie's school dinners only reveals part of the problem.

So what did Carmel do? Well, she started Magic Breakfast: a charity that provides bagels and breakfast cereals to primary schools. The breakfast clubs are run by teachers and children, no matter what their circumstances, are encouraged to come in before school and eat a breakfast that will release energy throughout the morning, making it easier for them to learn.

We went to see a Magic Breakfast school in action and speaking to the teachers we saw first hand how incredibly valuable they saw the breakfast clubs being. Not only did they provide many children with food, but they also improved punctuality by providing a reason for children to get to school on time.

We were so impressed with this cause that we decided to build them a website for free as part of our our pro bono initiative. The resulting site can be seen here. The content managed site is W3C compliant and we hope it will help raise awareness of this great project.

It also means that we're now looking for our next pro-bono project. So if you know of anyone that would find a brand new website useful please let us know! The only criteria is that we have to think it's a great cause and they have to be in a position where they cannot afford to pay to have a site built themselves.

Magic Breakfast »

Codegent launched healthinitiatives.org today, coinciding with an interview on the BBC's website with the charity's founder, Clint Walters.

Health Initiatives is a site aimed at young people to encourage awareness and provide support for those with HIV.

Clint Walters is set to get a lot more publicity in coming months as the subject of a TV documentary whcih is following him in his quest to run the London Marathon in April 2006.

The site is completely content managed allowing the charity to have total control over the navigation and page content.

Codegent felt that this was a charity doing important work and has given its time for free.

Clint's article on the BBC »
Visit Health Initiatives »