VC and senior management help students’ charity drive

**Vice-Chancellor Nigel Thrift and the University’s senior management team have pledged to donate up to £5,000 to a group of students fundraising for the charity, Against Malaria Foundation (AMF).**

Third-year Maths undergraduate Callum Calvert and third-year Philosophy and Literature undergraduate Benjamin Clifford, who have been raising money for AMF, had a meeting with the Academic Registrar on 27 February to seek a donation. They were later informed by email that their request had been successful.

The students are part of a group of eight who are pledging money as part of The Big Match, a charity initiative aimed at raising money for AMF through Giving What We Can (GWWC). The Vice-Chancellor and the senior management team will match any further donation up to the value of £5,000.

GWWC is an international society for the promotion of cost-effective poverty relief.

The students have already raised over £12,000 for AMF, but hope to increase that amount through the University’s donation.

“We were over the moon because it meant that even more students could double their money and it also meant that GWWC and AMF would get some great publicity,” said Mr Calvert.

AMF funds and distributes anti-malaria nets to countries affected by the disease. Each net costs $4 (about £2.50) and lasts for three to four years. The charity estimates that for every 50 – 250 nets it distributes, one child’s life can be saved.

The University denied any connection between the donation and the recent controversy over Nigel Thrift’s travel expenses and pay, as reported by the _Boar_ in [November 2012](https://theboar.org/news/2012/nov/28/thrifty-name-not-nature/) and [January 2013](https://theboar.org/news/2013/jan/15/vice-chancellor-pay-rise-controversy/) respectively.

“[T]he Vice-Chancellor has been a donor to the University for several years,” said University spokesman Peter Dunn.

“The officers who have made this decision to support this have done so because they have seen that the passion of the students concerned is endorsed by widespread support from a dozen very diverse Warwick student societies, and they are raising funds for areas that the University is itself beginning to look at in terms of research – particularly with our partnership with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.”

Mr Calvert said that the idea of the donation being tied to the expenses scandal was not an issue.

“It didn’t cross my mind,” he said. “We just thought that he’d be interested in this idea of getting more for his money.”

Donations can be made at [www.AgainstMalaria.com/TheBigMatch](http://www.AgainstMalaria.com/TheBigMatch)