The Conduit Foundation

Founded in 1978, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Bermuda is a charity which provides a mentoring programme dedicated to helping youth, primarily from single parent homes, realise their potential by facilitating the development of long-term one-on-one relationships.

The Conduit Foundation backs the charity’s positive impact in supporting those who are found in disadvantaged positions and bringing together individuals from diverse parts of society.

This supports our Foundation’s objective of advancement of citizenship or community development and the advancement of equality.

Year supported: 2023, 2023 (Gala), 2022

Website: http://www.bbbs.bm/

The Bermuda Red Cross was formed in 1950 as a branch of the British Red Cross Society. Originally a Nursing Reserve, it has grown over the years to provide other community-based programmes focusing on the most vulnerable. The charity provides health and safety courses to educate the public in basic First Aid, CPR AED use, pool lifeguarding and psychosocial first aid response. It also provides free transport for seniors for medical appointments as well as disaster management. Since the COVID pandemic, the charity has faced an unprecedented volume of requests and costs which lead to an urgent appeal for financial support.

The Foundation responded to this appeal to ensure the charity can continue to provide community health and safety training and outreach programmes. 

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of advancement of education and advancement of health or saving of lives.

Year supported: 2023 (Gala), 2022

Website: https://bermudaredcross.com/

Bermuda College recently incorporated an Electric Vehicle training within their Motor Vehicle programmes. As Bermuda residents seek to reduce their carbon emissions, there has been an increase in demand for electric vehicles. This programme upskills those currently in the automotive industry, as well as incoming students, in repair and maintenance of electric and hybrid cars.

Conduit chose to provide a bursary for the Bermuda College Foundation Vehicle Mechanics programme to provide training and access to jobs whilst supporting the transition to less polluting vehicles. While the commitment was made in 2022, funding is from 2023 to 2026.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of advancement of education.

Year supported: 2023, 2023 (Gala), 2024, 2025, 2026
Website: https://www.college.bm/ 

The Bermuda Sloop Foundation was founded in 2006 to ensure Bermuda’s youth increase their long-term chances of success. By being immersed in an environment fostering positive behaviour, boosting individual resilience, and cultivating critical life skills, young people of Bermuda are better prepared to meet life’s challenges, overcome adversity with confidence and avoid antisocial behaviour.

Our donation supports the youth programme aboard the Spirit of Bermuda and provides Bermuda’s youth with important educational and development opportunity outside of the traditional school environment.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of advancement of education and advancement of arts, culture, heritage or science.

Year supported: 2023 (Gala), 2022

Website: https://bermudasloop.org/

The Friends of Christchurch Feeding Programme provide meaningful results in the community by feeding families currently in crisis in Bermuda. The programme serves two to three hundred meals each day, six days per week.

Our Foundation seeks to support those in our local community, especially those in crisis. This supports our Foundation’s objectives of prevention or relief of poverty.

Year supported: 2023 (Gala), 2022

Vision Bermuda is dedicated to empowering people who are blind or vision impaired to learn how to live well with vision loss. They help people with no and low vision to maintain independence, learn new skills, participate in social and physical activities to reduce loneliness and isolation. They provide a range of services, classes, social activities and events, including vision rehabilitation therapy, orientation and mobility support, assistive technology and equipment information and training, small group training workshops and many more.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of advancement of health or saving of lives.

Year supported: 2023 (Gala), 2022

Website: https://visionbermuda.bm/

SCARS is Bermuda’s only child sexual abuse prevention charity organisation. It was formed to create greater awareness of the devastation that child sexual abuse can cause in the life of a child, a family and a community. SCARS offers, at no cost to the community, prevention training, awareness programmes and informational resources for healing.

In addition to our Charitable Event Sponsorship Donation to Kayak4Kids Event in September, in 2022 we also provided a donation to SCARS directly to allow them to continue their advocacy work and to continue offering their training programmes free of charge. We also make SCARS training available to our staff, many of whom have attended.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of advancement of health or saving of lives and the advancement of education.

Year supported: 2023 (Gala), 2022

Website: https://www.scarsbermuda.com/

P.A.L.S. mission is to provide cancer patients with quality care, primarily in the home setting, to enhance quality of life. P.A.L.S. provides medical equipment and services to insured and uninsured patients. Additionally, they can help with hospital bills, living expenses and medical services while patients undergo cancer treatment.

Funds provided by the Foundation assist with the employment of two nurses to provide patient care at home.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of advancement of health or saving of lives and relief to those in need because of ill-health.

Year supported: 2023 (Gala), 2022

Website:  https://pals.bm/

Bermuda’s Living Reefs work to keep Bermuda's reefs and the marine life they support healthy. They launched a Coral Garden Initiative in 2016 and aim to develop a tourism/conservation partnership to ensure the sustainable conservation of the Atlantic's northernmost reefs. Their work is based on scientific studies. Their goal is to restore damaged reefs using innovative state of the art techniques for a range of boulder and branching coral species.

Conduit supports Living Reefs to help protect our environment against stresses, such as temperature changes, acidification, pollution and overfishing.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of advancement of environmental protection or improvement and the advancement of education.

Year supported: 2023 (Gala), 2022

Website: https://www.livingreefs.org/

Since launching in 2001, Waterstart has developed, and continues to expand upon, a collection of highly successful outdoor education programmes. Waterstart promotes environmental awareness, and allows students to participate in woodland restoration, pilot aquaculture studies, seagrass monitoring and fish identification surveys. These programmes allow students to embrace new experiences and gain skills through experiential learning.

We support Waterstart due to the mixed educational and environmental benefits.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of advancement of environmental protection or improvement and the advancement of education.

Year supported: 2023 (Gala), 2022

Website: https://waterstartbermuda.org/

Tomorrow’s Voices was established in 2007 to provide low-cost behaviour therapy for children on the severe end of the autism spectrum. As the clinic continues to evolve, it has expanded its mission to assist all individuals with autism and developmental differences over their life span. Tomorrow’s Voices subsidises the cost of therapeutic one-on-one Applied Behavioural Analysis services to the parents and guardians of their clients by an estimated 80%. This gives those parents and guardians the ability to access high end, research based, medically necessary services at an affordable cost to ensure their children access the clinical services they need. They also offer seminars for parents, teachers and other therapists.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of advancement of health or saving of lives and relief to those in need.

Year supported: 2023 (Gala), 2022

Website: https://www.tomorrowsvoices.bm/

HOME works to end homelessness in Bermuda. HOME is working with the Bermuda government, non-governmental agencies, charities, philanthropies, the religious and wider local community to create a collaborative, single plan to eradicate homelessness on our island.

Our donation assisted HOME to invest in one identified rough sleeper to enable them to go through their programme.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of the prevention or relief of poverty.

Year supported: 2023 (Gala), 2022

Website: https://home.bm/

Paget Marsh is one of Bermuda’s most important nature reserves. The least disturbed of Bermuda’s original peat marshes, this 25-acre reserve is of great environmental significance, a valuable educational site, and a popular place for visitors and locals to enjoy time in nature.

The Bermuda National Trust sought funding to restore the boardwalk at Paget Marsh, which is now 25 years old. In need of repairs, it has been closed to visitors the past few years. The 400-foot wooden boardwalk allows access into the heart of the marsh, a special habitat virtually unchanged from pre-settlement times. Interpretive signage provides for learning about Bermuda’s natural heritage. The accessible entrance gate provides virtually the only wheelchair friendly access to a nature reserve in Bermuda. Without the boardwalk, public access to this nature reserve is very limited. The reserve was an important part of Trust’s environmental education programme, but without the boardwalk they cannot hold fieldtrips there. The boardwalk is also essential for maintenance, as it provides access for volunteer work parties and contractors to remove invasive species deep within the marsh.

Given the educational and environmental benefit of this project, the Conduit Foundation committed to being a Platinum sponsor of the marsh.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of the advancement of environmental protection or improvement and the advancement of education.

Year supported: 2023, 2023 (Gala), 2022

Website: https://bnt.bm/environment/protected_open_space/central_wetlands/

Meals on Wheels Bermuda began serving the elderly and people with disabilities in 1975. Meals on Wheels prepares and delivers freshly cooked meals, island-wide, to persons who are incapacitated or otherwise unable to prepare a nourishing meal on their own and who have no caregiver, friend or family member who can consistently provide this service. With the help of 120 volunteers and 4 part time staff, they cook and deliver approximately 3,800 nourishing individual meals per month while catering to multiple individual dietary requirements. Further, they provide meals in bulk to other local feeding programmes.

Meals on Wheels were looking to purchase new heated food service delivery bags for the volunteers to use during their delivery routes. Upon successfully sourcing a suitable bag, Conduit supplied a donation to purchase enough bags for each of their delivery routes. We have also committed to our staff volunteering for a weekly delivery route.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of the prevention or relief of poverty and relief to those in need.

Year supported: 2023, 2023 (Gala)

Website: https://mealsonwheels.bm/

^{The Conduit Foundation donated insulated bags to Meals on Wheels.}

The Lady Cubitt Compassionate Association was established to relieve poverty, suffering, distress, and to promote happiness and well-being amongst those in our community who are less fortunate.

The charity’s work furthers the Foundations mission to support Bermuda’s vulnerable populations by ensuring that care is provided to those in need.

Funds received from the Foundation were used in their Nursing Home Resident Assistance programme, which provides funds to nursing homes that are registered charities in Bermuda. Rest home residents having limited resources are assisted in meeting their incidental costs (such as, medications, personal care items and clothing).

Year supported: 2023

Website: https://lcca.bm/ 

Peak Potential Bermuda provides educational support services that enable and inspire youth to reach their full potential, thrive and prosper. Their programmes are designed to assist students to grasp and reinforce concepts that they may be struggling with in their classroom setting in school.

The Foundation supports this organisation’s work to meet local educational needs and to help local students to meet their potential through tutoring.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of advancement of education

Year supported: 2023

Website: https://peakpotentialbda.org/ 

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (“SPCA”) Bermuda provides shelter and rehoming services to animals who have been neglected, abandoned or abused. They also provide emergency services for animals that have been injured or are in need of emergency care as well as overseeing complaints of cruelty and neglect for all types of animals.

Funds received from the Foundation are used in their school educational programmes. The Foundation believes that the charity makes meaningful impact for the local community and environment and chose to support the charity to enable it to continue its impactful work.

Year supported: 2023

Website: https://spca.bm/ 

The Menuhin Foundation’s vision is that all children will have access to the unique social, emotional, and intellectual benefits of learning to play a stringed instrument and develop a lifelong appreciation for music.

The Conduit Foundation chose to support the Menuhin Foundation to enable to students to have access to music lessons regardless of their background and resources.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of advancement of education.

Year supported: 2023

Website: https://menuhin.bm/ 

The Adult Education School provides educational opportunities for adults who were unable to graduate from high school. The charity has enabled those who did not complete school, for a range of reasons from health to trauma, to obtain qualifications such as the GED. Following which a number of alumni have been able to meet some of their lifelong goals.

The Conduit Foundation chose to support the Adult Education School as it believes in supporting all individuals, regardless of age, to obtain qualifications to help open doors for their career opportunities.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of advancement of education.

Year supported: 2023

Website: https://www.aesbda.org/

The Reading Clinic was founded to help students who have a specific language-based learning difference, such as Dyslexia. Their mission is to equip children who have learning differences with the self-understanding, tools and confidence they need to thrive in school and beyond. They provide specialised tutoring for children in reading and maths. They seek to provide services to children regardless of resources, and as such provide bursaries for testing and tutoring.

Conduit wanted to support this charity to help neurodiverse students who need additional support to succeed at school.

This supports our Foundation’s objectives of advancement of education.

Year supported: 2023

Website: https://readingclinic.bm/ 

AAD offers music and movement activities to benefit those living with dementia in Bermuda. These activities are offered at no charge in an engaging, creative and safe environment. Their vision is to see a society where those with a Dementia diagnosis are enabled to “live well” with the support of a Dementia friendly community.

The Foundation chose to support this charity because of the community and health care services it provides.

Year supported: 2023

Website: https://aad.bm/