An increasing number of natural disasters following on from the Asian Tsumani in Dec 2004, combined with an overwhelming desire of the ACS to contribute to provide aid, led to the formation of the Disaster Relief Committee (DRC) last year.Administrators, teachers, parents and students volunteered to sit on the committee and adopted as a mission: to provide support to international aid organizations who give immediate help to disaster victims throughout the world and to inform and educate our community about the importance of our role as global citizens to help those in need.

In 2006-07, we will continue to support our selected charity, Medicins san Frontieres (MSF), also known as Doctors without Borders, as the humanitarian aid organization through which we will channel our fundraising. James Kliffen, MSF Head of Fundraising, visited ACS on 3 occasions last year to speak and show film footage of their work to provide urgent medical care to people whose lives are in danger due to the inaccessibility of clinics, medicines, doctors and nurses, in Africa, Asia, and other areas of the world. James told us money that the £8000 that we sent to MSF last year will assist with the running of clinics, of sending teams of doctors and nurses & the buying of medicines. It was the largest contribution that MSF have received from a school. In June, 3 high school students—Paulo Araujo, Salina Zaheen, and Mikolaj Mrozek, along with Tom Lehman, our Head of School, attended the MSF Scientific Day in London, where doctors and nurses from around the world gather to report on research to assist medical care, and on challenges faced in the field. We look forward to inviting MSF back to campus to share more of their work this year.

We hope that the entire community will join us in fundraising this year. The High School and Middle School student body respectively raised £1200 and £1000 for MSF last year with the Girl Scouts raising £200. Our big event, the Jon Schmidt piano charity concert in April 2006 raised £9500. Of our money raised in 2005-06, we sent £8000 to MSF, £2500 to the Red Cross in response to the Indonesian Earthquake in May, and are holding iro £2000 in a “pot” in order to respond quickly to the next disaster. The committee will keep you informed of new fundraising efforts via bulletins, the Cobham Connection, and the school website.

The DRC gratefully acknowledges the outstanding contributions made by the ACS community which show a huge sense of caring for those in need.