Charities

Wildlife Rescue Rehabilitation and Release. We rescue and rehabilitate thousands of birds and mammals every year, and with our purpose built Accident and Emergency Unit, we are improving our facilities, and becoming busier year on year. We take in injured or orphaned wildlife from all over Scotland, and with our volunteer staff work hard to ensure a very high success rate for releasing back to the wild. From the smallest birds to the magnificent Osprey, with foxes, badgers and deer often needing help, and not forgetting the stunning squirrels, pine martens and hedgehogs we take in on a regular basis.

The North of England Refugee Service was established in 1989. We are an independent and charitable organisation which exists to meet the needs and promote the interests of asylum seekers and refugees who have arrived or have settled in the North of England. NERS acts as an agent of positive change in For the last 30 years NERS has been working to improve the everyday life conditions of asylum seekers and refugees, and to promote social inclusion by facilitating their integration and equal participation within British society with and for the immediate and long-term needs of the community of refugees across the North East region, focusing at the most vulnerable stages of the journey to integration.

The Rural Life Living Museum tells the story of the countryside, its unique collection of re-located historic buildings allow visitors to explore inside, complemented by one of the largest collections of agricultural implements and objects from everyday life. We take you on a journey of nostalgia and discovery suitable for all the family. The museum produces and hosts a range of special events, from the annual Village Fete and Vintage Revival through to Weyfest. Our volunteers demonstrate craft skills, working machinery and bring to life some special characters through live interpretation on various days throughout the year. The Old Kiln Light Railway regularly operates both steam and diesel locomotives on passenger rides during weekends and school holidays from February-October. We are an open-air museum, set in over 10 acres of open space and woodland with an arboretum containing over 100 trees situated in the Farnham heathland.

The Osteopathic Centre for Children offer the very best paediatric osteopathy to babies, children, teenagers and perinatal women, regardless of a family’s ability to pay.

The Owls Trust, based at Bodafon Farm Park, Llandudno, is a small charity doing a big and important job. There are three main strands to our work. Firstly, we provide rescue and rehabilitation to injured birds of prey. We nurse the wild birds back to health and, when they are ready we release them back into a suitable habitat. There is an increasing “fashion” of caging large owls and birds of prey as “pets”. Unfortunately very few of such owners have the space or commitment to care effectively for these magnificent creatures and we are often asked to step in to rescue them. These birds are frequently distressed and in poor condition. We give them permanent homes with us where they can regain a good quality of life in more spacious and appropriate surroundings suitable to their specie. Our second activity is to educate young people and older groups about our local birds of prey, their place in our environment and how we can maintain their habitats to protect the bio-diversity of our countryside. We believe that to become excited about conserving something you have to see what you are hoping to conserve. Meeting one of our owls can make that difference. Finally, we work with international partners to create and maintain breeding stocks of the world’s rarest owls. When imperiled habitats can be restored and protected, we will be able to enhance threatened populations or even reintroduce new groups. We have just been gifted a Pel’s Fishing Owl, a specie that has never set foot on UK soil, for Educational purposes. This owl is just a year old and has been hand reared for us in Italy by the only breeder of these owls in the world. Hopefully it will become an excellent ambassador for its species in the future.

The Oxford Gatehouse is a drop-in cafe with an open door for anyone who is 25 or over. It is open Monday – Friday 5.00-7.00 pm, Sundays 4.00-6.00pm, at the St Giles Parish Rooms, 10 Woodstock Road, near the centre of Oxford.