A team shirt personally signed by each member of Bermuda’s historic first World Cup cricket team will be among the prized items going under the hammer when the Kathmandu Kids Club and the ISIS Foundation hold a charity auction next month.

The shirt will be included among the Asian and African treasures offered for sale and auction at ‘A Little Help, A Little Hope’, to be held on May 17 in the new Gosling’s Wine Cellar on Dundonald Street from 5.30 p.m to 8.30 p.m.

Funds raised by the event will go directly to projects run by The ISIS Foundation to help children in need in Uganda and Nepal. The Kathmandu Kids Club was formed last year specifically to raise funds to support The ISIS Foundation’s work in Nepal.

Events manager Eve Paterson of the Kathmandu Kids Club said the event promised to be bigger and better than the club’s first event, ‘Namaste: An Evening in Nepal’, which raised more than $30,000 at the Bermuda National Gallery last September.

“We’ve some great pieces straight from Uganda, Africa including beautiful one-off pieces of jewellery, arts and amazing batik wall hangings, as well as items which have been generously donated from people around the Island, including a team shirt signed by the entire Bermuda World Cup cricket team, waterskiing lessons, weekend breaks at Cambridge Beaches donated by Cambridge Beaches, a springstone sculpture from a Master Shona artist of Zimbabwe, courtesy of Crisson & Hind Fine Art Gallery, and much more,” Ms Paterson said.

“We will also be serving complimentary wine and hors d’oeuvres, and it promises to be a great evening at a fantastic new Bermuda venue.

“As usual, the event is being organised and run entirely by our team of amazing volunteers who are generously donating their own time and expertise so that all proceeds from our auction, sales and donations on the night go undiluted to ISIS projects.”

Money raised from the auction by the Kathmandu Kids Club will go towards the ISIS Children’s Homes in Kathmandu where ISIS provide full-time residential care for 136 children who have been internally displaced due to war and also provide health services to more than 6,000 locals who would otherwise not receive any healthcare at all.

Proceeds from the auction and sale of Ugandan goods will go towards The ISIS Foundation projects in Uganda which include support for a neonatal intensive care unit at Kiwoko Hospital. The funds will enable a container full of urgently needed supplies to be shipped from the US to Kiwoko.

ISIS also provides support for a range of other programmes assisting diabetics and people living with AIDS, and their children.

In addition it continues to work with a home for ex-street kids in Kampala.

The event is free for patrons, members and supporters of the Kathmandu Kids Club. Tickets for non-members are $25 at the door. As space at the Gosling’s wine cellar is limited, it is highly recommended that people e-mail rsvp[AT]kathmandukidsclub.com to be included on the guest list.

The ISIS Foundation’s mission is to make a positive difference to the lives of children in the developing world, primarily through health and educational programmes. These projects range from running ten children’s homes for children who have escaped the war in the mountains and are now living in Kathmandu, to providing solar power and pit latrines for families living in villages 12,000 feet up in the Himalayas.

The ISIS Foundation is supported and managed by ISIS Limited, a Bermuda-based corporate finance and consultancy business founded in 1998 by Audette Exel (www.isis.bm/Resumee Audette@hotmail.com)and Sharon Beesley (www.isis.bm/ResumeeSharon@hotmail.com) to generate funds for the charity. Since the Foundation was established, ISIS Limited has donated more than US$1.9 million to the charity.