2025 Report by Chair of the Standing Committee on Welfare Programmes (SCOWP)
Mrs Evelyn Strouts
It is a pleasure to write my first report as Chair of SCOWP. First though, I’d like to pay
tribute to my predecessor, the late Brigadier John King MBE. John served as Chairman of
SCOWP for the past 13 years, a time of great change for RCEL, in particular the introduction of the Commonwealth Veterans Programme (CVP) providing record levels of welfare grants to impoverished pre-independence veterans and widows throughout the Commonwealth. He was a man who cared deeply about fellow veterans and their widows. He will be greatly missed.
In April 2025, SCOWP began the seventh year of our CVP, a targeted programme to deliver food-purchase welfare grants to our elderly beneficiaries in need. For veterans and widows in the 23 countries within the programme (and the three outside), our grants, equivalent to the cost of two meals a day in their country, have meant a significant increase in their welfare, above RCEL’s previous aim of providing one meal a day. Our veterans and widows have seen sharp rises in the cost of living, in particular, food, cooking oil and gas.
During 2025, our grants were made to 2,613 beneficiaries, a reduction of 22.5% from the 3,362 veterans and widows supported in 2024. Aside from the majority funding of the CVP by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) vital match-funding contributions are also made by the Army Benevolent Fund, The Royal British
Legion, RAF Benevolent Fund, Greenwich Hospital (on behalf of the Royal Navy) and many private donations.
Donors recognise the continuing need for the food grants and the good work of our in-country Member Organisations across the Commonwealth who deliver the grants.
RCEL global welfare distribution to Member Organisations exceeded £2.3 million including those of other Founder Members and UK Service Charities. This sum included 215 grant payments totalling £152,958 on behalf of 23 UK-based service charities
as Agency work.
Our disbursement of grants from Blind Veterans UK (BVUK) continues. During 2025, 64 veterans were supported, eight fewer than last year. During the year, BVUK increased their grant to a very welcome £160, a valuable addition to the veteran’s SCOWP grant.
BVUK’s unfailing support to blind and partially sighted Commonwealth veterans is gratefully acknowledged.
The Royal Canadian Legion (RCL) is also gratefully acknowledged for its generosity in 2025, contributing over £96,000 of support and services to beneficiaries and Member Organisations in 11 Caribbean nations.
RCL gave individual assistance to veterans and widows in Antigua, The Bahamas, Jamaica, and Trinidad & Tobago. In addition, RCL provided funding for Remembrance supplies and IT services to Member Organisations in the seven other Caribbean nations.
Other RCEL founder members, The Returned & Services League of Australia, The Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association and the South African Legion also contributed to beneficiary welfare.
In 2025, office staff and trustees undertook several Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) visits to Member Organisations and to meet our increasing aged and less mobile beneficiaries.
During July, Programme Manager, Dean Burditt visited Uganda to help establish our new Member Organisation, British Residents’ Association Uganda, which has taken on the in-country tasks of beneficiary administration, visiting our veterans and widows,
payment of their welfare grants and the all-important reporting so the charity knows the right people are receiving their grant. It was a successful visit to start a new chapter in our assistance to needy pre-independence Ugandan beneficiaries.
In September, Controller Welfare & Grants, Tim Burt visited Malawi to review the operations of new Member Organisation, the Veterans and Ex-Service Members of Malawi (VELOM) in the capital Lilongwe.
VELOM’s smooth operations are led by General (Retd) Henry Odillo and Colonel (Retd) Kelton Kaleke who ensure our veterans and widows receive much needed assistance. Subsequently visiting Mauritius, and meeting Naden Armoogum, the excellent manager of the Ex-Servicemen’s Association of Mauritius, Tim met veterans of the Royal Pioneer
Corps and their widows and saw first-hand how pockets of poverty and need exist. Malawi and Mauritius are two very different nations, but food poverty is the same in both.
During late November and early December Honorary Treasurer, Jeremy Archer and Controller Finance, Pasan Kularatne visited The Gambia and Kenya. In The Gambia, accompanied by Pa Faal of The Gambia Legion and guided by RCEL representatives, Noeline Ambrose and Peter Twitchet, the pair travelled on rough roads along the banks of the Gambia River to meet the last remaining veterans of The Gambia
Regiment and their widows.
Jeremy Archer makes Welfare Grant payment
to a veteran of The Gambia Regiment.
In Kenya, Jeremy and Pasan were hosted by Defence Forces Comrades Association and British Legion (Kenya) who jointly administer and part-fund over 300 RCEL beneficiaries. The majority of veterans had served in the Kings African Rifles with first hand experiences of tough service during the Mau-Mau rebellion of the 1950s.
Dean Burditt visited Africa again later in the year. During October he met beneficiaries in Ghana and made checks of the well-run Veterans Administration, Ghana (VAG). Moving on to Sierra Leone, Dean helped our member Organisation Sierra Leone
Ex-Servicemen’s Association (SLESA) relocate from Cockerill Barracks, Freetown to better operate in new offices. Over 100 veterans and widows receive in-person visits from SLESA executives twice a year to pay their annual welfare grant. In December,
VAG was visited by programme staff of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (on a wider fact-finding visit to west Africa) who met RCEL beneficiaries to see first-hand the life-enhancing impact of their funding to RCEL’s Commonwealth
Veterans Programme.
The 2025 monitoring and evaluation visits were concluded during February 2026 when Secretary General David Thompson visited member organisations the Jamaica Legion and the Belize Ex-Services League (BESL). In Kingston, David was accompanied by RCEL Caribbean Project Officer Major (Retd) Johanna Lewin on visits to beneficiaries and to veterans’ home Curphey Place. David was pleased to see progress on repairs to buildings damaged by Hurricane Beryl in July 2024, a Category 5 storm. The SCOWP Committee made a repair and recovery grant, via the Jamaica Legion.
In Belize, David was accompanied by Belize Council Member Mrs Yvette Best visiting from the UK to coincide with David’s visit. Guided by BESL General Secretary, Valerie Richardson JP, David and Yvette met veterans in Belize City, Corozal and Orange Walk. A
summary of all visits can be read in later pages.
Throughout 2025, RCEL's unique network of Member Organisations and in-country representatives once again delivered vital welfare grants to our beneficiaries, seen first-hand during M&E visits. The SCOWP grants, funded by FCDO, service charities
and individual donors provided vital support to over 2,600 pre-independence individuals throughout the Commonwealth. We thank all our supporters without whom we could not deliver this important work.
L/Cpl Mulinge Nzoka Ngombo, King's African Rifles.
A veteran of the North Africa and Burma Campaigns.
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