Our Charity

The Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League (RCEL) provides welfare support for ex-service men and women of Commonwealth countries who at some time served the British Crown, and who are resident overseas.

Founded by Earl Haig in 1921, RCEL has 52 Member Organisations in 46 countries, covering the Caribbean, West, East and Southern Africa, the Indian sub-continent to Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Australasia. RCEL provides support in the form of welfare grants to provide the equivalent of two meals a day. The key objective is to ensure that no eligible ex-service man or woman shall be without help if in need. 

The significant investment by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in recent years has delivered improved resilience and governance and we recognise and thank them, on behalf of over 7,000 beneficiaries from across the Commonwealth who served The Crown and have been kept alive during this time. Much of what we do is delivered by volunteers, our Board of Trustees and Commonwealth Council Members in the UK, and those overseas who commit so much time and energy to helping others. 

The RCEL conducts all key management meetings in person in the UK and HQ Staff conduct several annual Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) visits to our Member Organisations to satisfy our contractual requirements under the FCDO Accountable Grant Arrangement (AGA).  Please refer to our Welfare pages for further details on these visits. 

We estimated that some 3,600 beneficiaries still need support for up to a further five years, and we were delighted to have secured a further extension of 3 years to our Commonwealth Veterans Programme from April 2024 to March 2027. 

The League has committed to providing matched funding for the FCDO Commonwealth Veterans Programme and to keep our side of the arrangement, and therefore we rely on the generosity of the UK Service Charities and others who support us. 

RCEL Patronage (May 2024)