We are delighted to award a £200,000 grant to the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League (RCEL) to ensure that vulnerable veterans, widows and their families can enjoy a healthy diet and stay out of poverty.
In conjunction with the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office’s overseas aid programme, RCEL provides an annual welfare grant to pre-independence Commonwealth veterans and their widows who find themselves in need.
Our donation will help fund the costs of two meals a day so that over 4,000 vulnerable veterans, widows and families – many of them elderly and frail – can be free from hunger and have the nutrition they need.
Lt Col Christopher Warren, Secretary General, Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League, said:
“ABF The Soldiers’ Charity has been supporting Commonwealth soldiers and their widows for over 50 years through their partnership with the RCEL. I cannot overstate the importance and impact this significant grant makes to lives of thousands living in poverty across the world.
“The current well-documented cost of living pressures and inflationary increases to the price of food places these vulnerable old soldiers in a perilous position. For those who served alongside their British brothers and sisters in arms, this grant often means the difference between starvation and survival. This grant shows real commitment to those who would otherwise have nowhere else to turn. That ABF The Soldiers’ Charity still remembers them means so much.”
Brigadier (Ret’d) Peter Monteith, Chief Operating Officer ABF The Soldiers’ Charity, added:
“Our charity supported soldiers, veterans and their families in 48 countries worldwide over the last financial year, mainly through the RCEL’s programmes. Soldiers who served our country loyally in times of conflict deserve a life of dignity, free from economic hardship. We are always proud to support the RCEL’s important work.”
Our £200,000 grant helps former soldiers such as Colour Sergeant Maxmos Ketulo who served in the Kings African Rifles during World War Two and the Malayan Emergency. The RCEL arranges his annual welfare grant which he collects from his home in Malawi. You can read more here about CSgt Ketulo and other Commonwealth veterans who benefit from RCEL support.