We are delighted to award a £195,000 grant to the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League (RCEL) towards its welfare aid programme for veterans and families in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
In conjunction with the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office’s overseas aid programme, the RCEL provides an annual welfare grant to pre-independence Commonwealth veterans and their widows in need. Our grant will help ensure that these vulnerable beneficiaries – many of them elderly and frail – have access to the diet and nutrition they need. The grant allows the RCEL to help provide two good meals a day, wherever the beneficiary lives.
Lt Col Christopher Warren, Secretary General, Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League, said:
“The 3,000 Army veterans and widows supported by the RCEL are hugely grateful for the ABF’s generous welfare grants. For over 50 years, the ABF has been a loyal and committed supporter of Commonwealth veterans and widows living overseas; many are World War II veterans now in their mid-nineties or older. The ABF grant helps to keep them alive and provide dignity and recognition in their twilight years.”
Brigadier (Ret’d) Peter Monteith, Chief Operating Officer, Army Benevolent Fund, added:
“During the last financial year, our charity supported members of the Army family in 45 countries worldwide, including through the RCEL. Soldiers who served our country loyally in times of conflict deserve a life of dignity, free from poverty and hardship. We are always proud to support the RCEL’s important work.”
Our grant helps beneficiaries like Corporal Mutegana Eriasafu, a veteran of the WW2 campaigns against Italian forces in East Africa. Mutegana still lives in Kampala and receives annual welfare assistance from the RCEL so that he and his family can have a healthy diet. You can read more about him here Supporting the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League – Army Benevolent Fund
Visit the RCEL’s website here.