2022-23 Report by Chairman of the Standing Committee on Welfare Programmes (SCOWP)
Brigadier John King MBE

In April 2023, SCOWP began the fifth and final year of our Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) funded Commonwealth Veterans Programme, a targeted food-purchase programme to deliver the highest-ever level of welfare grants to our in-poverty beneficiaries. However, the continuing need to deliver our vital food grants and the good work of our Member Organisations across the Commonwealth was recognised by the FCDO, and I am pleased to report RCEL was awarded a three-year programme extension to March 2027.

For many veterans and widows in the 23 countries within the programme (and the four outside) our grants, equivalent to the cost of two meals a day in their country, have meant a significant increase in their welfare, beyond RCEL’s previous aim of providing one meal a day. Our needy veterans and widows having suffered the restrictions of Covid now continue to endure stubbornly high cost of living, in particular, food.

During 2023, our two-meals-a-day grants were made to 3,473 beneficiaries, a reduction of 15.5% from the 4,114 veterans and widows supported in 2022. RCEL global welfare distribution to Member Organisations exceeded £2.79M including those of other Founder Members and UK Service Charities. This sum included 485 grant payments totalling £433,175 on behalf of some 26 UK-based service charities as Agency work. Our disbursement of grants to Blind Veterans UK (BV UK) continues. Some 81 veterans were supported, a decline since 2022 but this £120 annual grant is highly valued by beneficiaries. BV UK’s continued support to blind and partially sighted Commonwealth veterans is gratefully acknowledged.

The Royal Canadian Legion is also gratefully acknowledged for its generosity in 2023, contributing over £118,000 of welfare, Remembrance supplies and IT services support to Member Organisations in the Caribbean, directly funding 35 beneficiaries in Antigua, The Bahamas, Tobago, and Trinidad & Tobago and part-funding 26 veterans and widows in Jamaica. Our other Founder Members, The Returned & Services League of Australia, The Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association and The South African Legion also contributed significantly to beneficiary welfare.

Although the worst of Covid has passed, the threat of natural disasters is ever present to our beneficiaries so many of whom live in poor, often self-built housing and rely on subsistence farming. Sadly, Cyclone Freddy, an exceptionally long-lived, powerful, and deadly tropical cyclone that traversed the southern Indian Ocean hit southern Malawi during February – March 2023 where incessant rains caused catastrophic flash floods, especially in the south around Blantyre where the majority of our beneficiaries live. Whilst our Member Organisation in Malawi, the Kings African Veterans Trust reported no beneficiary fatalities, they did ask us to assist veterans and widows whose homes were damaged and crops washed away. I was pleased to approve modest recovery grants to these veterans and widows to repair their homes, replant their crops and get them back on their feet.
Malawi: Cyclone Freddy wrecked houses and destroyed crops. SCOWP recovery grants helped veterans and widows rebuild and replant.
Malawi: At Zomba, Maj Gen Mitch Mitchell helps a veteran of the Kings African Rifles collect his welfare grant.
In 2023, the Deputy Grand President, Hon Treasurer and office staff undertook several Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) visits to Member Organisations to meet our increasingly aged and less mobile beneficiaries.

During October, Secretary General Chris Warren visited Guyana and Jamaica, his last M&E visit on behalf of RCEL. In these two nations live some 40 of our 75 Caribbean beneficiaries. The work of the Guyana Veterans Legion, the Jamaica Legion and the RCEL Caribbean Project Officer, Major Johanna Lewin provide the means for us to deliver our welfare grants and the grants by other UK service charities to their beneficiaries too. Chris’s meetings with British High Commission staff, Prime Ministers and military service chiefs reflect the high regard RCEL is held, much of which is due to his hard work over the years benefitting preindependence veterans and widows throughout the Caribbean.

Also in October, Deputy Grand President, Maj Gen Mitch Mitchell and Controller Welfare, Tim Burt visited Malawi to review the work of the Kings African Veterans Trust after Cyclone Freddy and to witness the payment of our welfare grants to over 160 veterans and widows. The visit underlined the desperate need for our work to continue, to give a helping hand to veterans and widows without any other means of support.

Tim Burt later went on to Kenya where he met with the Defence Forces Comrades Association, British Legion (Kenya) and staff of the Defence Section, British High Commission, Nairobi. The smooth working of these partners ensures RCEL welfare grants reach over 500 pre-independence veterans and widows, though sadly but inevitably few WWII veterans remain.

During November, RCEL Honorary Treasurer Jeremy Archer and Programme Manager Pasan Kularatne visited Sierra Leone and Ghana. Sierra Leone Ex-Servicemen’s Association delivers grants to over 140 pre-independence veterans and widows with the assistance of RCEL Sierra Leone representative Sam Sahr. Travelling on to Ghana, Jeremy and Pasan were fortunate to visit Accra during Remembrance, taking part with Veterans Administration Ghana in the commemorations attended by several of our beneficiaries, before heading north to Kumasi a former centre of British army recruiting.

A summary of all visits can be read in later pages. Throughout 2023, RCEL’s unique network of Member Organisations and partnership with UK Service charities once again delivered vital welfare benefits to our beneficiaries. SCOWP welfare grants, maintained for a fifth year by FCDO funds, continue to deliver life-changing funds to over 3,400 needy pre-independence veterans and widows throughout the Commonwealth. I am pleased our Member Organisations have put Covid behind them and continue to deliver RCEL welfare grants to beneficiaries, providing reassuring food-security, practical recognition in their later years of those who served the Crown.
Ghana: Gold Coast Regiment veteran Gustav Ebenezer Amoateng at home
RCEL - Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League - Registered Charity No. 1174874 - Haig House, 199 Borough High Street, London SE1 1AA, United Kingdom - Telephone +44 (0)20 3207 2413

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