Links

Charity links:

  • Kalash Welfare – small-scale, humanitarian charity which aims to improve education and opportunities in the Kalash Valleys in North Western Pakistan.
  • Charity Choice – directory of UK charities, resources/articles for charities, such as charity service providers available in your area, and a free online donation service for UK charities.
  • Charity Commission – Search for Charities based in England or Wales, or find info about charity law, registration and other charity regulations
  • Charity Guide – A US site with information for people wanting to volunteer or donate, offers a range of advice and resources including charity ratings, volunteer opportunities, virtual volunteering from home, college scholarships rewarding community service, and many other links.
  • Charity Portal – Links to UK charities and resources
  • Craigslist Nonprofit Support Yellow Pages – a localized directory of nonprofit management support organizations and vendors serving nonprofits. Currently only serving the San Francisco Bay area, but planning to expand to cover the whole of the US.
  • The Development Gateway – building partnerships and information systems that provide access to knowledge for development
  • National Council for Voluntary Organisations (England)
  • Directory of Social Change – info on training, funding and news for the UK voluntary sector
  • Idealist.org – find resources, materials, volunteers and consultants around the world. Go to Idealist’s ‘Tools for Organisations page for a list of the most useful sites on the web for individuals starting, managing and funding a non-profit organisation.
  • Minnesota Non-Profit Yellow Pages – a directory of support services for Minnesota nonprofits
  • New York ‘Who Does What’ Directory – an online resource for New York City-area nonprofits. It is a searchable database of nonprofits that offer technical assistance, including management, financial, legal and other such resources, to other nonprofit organizations
  • Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator – The independent regulator and registrar of Scottish Charities
  • Scottish Council for Voluntary organisations – advice and information Scottish Charities
  • Workwithus.org: Scottish Voluntary Sector Portal

IT resources:

  • speckz.com – Brilliant independent web hosting service with links to free open-source software and news
  • WordPress – Free hosting, CMS system. Excellent resource
  • Ben Courtney – Independent graphic designer, offers reduced rates on websites, posters etc to selected charities

(All recommendations are based on our personal experience, we don’t accept any ads on the site)

FREE SPACES WHERE YOU CAN RUN PROJECTS/WORKSHOPS/EXHIBITIONS:

UK:

Bosnia:

Independent, co-op or ethical consumer sites

  • Black Spot Sneaker – Adbuster’s new sneaker, aiming to overtake Nike as the coolest trainers around.
  • Charity Bank – a CAF project, Charity Bank has accounts for individuals, charities and corporations. All income is used to support charities, mainly by offering low-interest loans. You can choose to recieve the interest or donate some of it to charity, and it’s the only bank that will make loans to small charities.
  • The Co-op Bank – seeks to uphold the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through its investments, so will not invest in any government or business which fails to uphold basic human rights within its sphere of influence, or any business whose links to an oppressive regime are a continuing cause for concern.
  • Ecotricity – switch to the ‘New Energy’ tariff, and Firefly will get £10 when you put ‘Kids International’ as the place where you heard about Ecotricity.
  • Envocare – the information site that promotes care of the environment. Includes information on recycling, environmentally friendly computer and phone disposal, ethical financial management, energy conservation resources, composting, environment-related articles and news, and a charity resources page.
  • Ethical Consumer – The UK’s only alternative consumer organisation looking at the social and environmental records of the companies behind the brand names
  • Ethical Threads – clothing and merchandise sourced from workplaces that meet international conventions on workers rights, and which are verified by free trade unions. Mainly directed at making the music industry sweatshop free
  • The Fairtrade Foundation – info on the Fairtrade movement, guaranteeing a better deal to producers in the developing world; plus links to fairtrade sellers, producers, and other ethical sites
  • Get Ethical – created by Red Pepper and The Big Issue magazines. By buying through getethical, you are purchasing products or services that are reducing environmental impact and/or are made by social business investing in the local economy and helping to create sustainable communities. Getethical screen all the companies hosted on the site to ensure they pay more than just lip service to environmental and social justice issues as well as offering good quality, reasonably priced products
  • Mooncups – the environmentally friendly alternative to tampons
  • No Sweat – No Sweat is an activist, campaigning organisation, fighting sweatshop bosses, in solidarity with workers, worldwide
  • No Sweat Apparel – sweatshop free, union-made casual clothing, trainers etc
  • The Phone Co-op – A phone co-operative, offering a more ethical and environmentally responsible approach to business plus cheaper phone bills

Funding:

Financial:
  • Kids International Net Donations – a charity shopping portal, that allows any children’s charity in any country, or any of their supporters, to put themselves on a list of organisations to recieve funds every time someone shops at a range of places including Amazon, No Sweat – sweatshop-free clothes and trainers/sneakers, Travelocity and other cheap travel booking portals, and many other shops. Kids International is committed to giving 100% of income to the charities nominated. Shoppers can choose to have the income they generate divided between all the charities on the list, or given to one particular charity.
  • Access-Funds.co.uk – lists of donors
  • Funder Finder Trusts – List of links to individual donors
  • Funder Finder Resources - List of fundraising resources
  • Awards for all – A lottery grants programme for small community groups looking for small sums of money
  • iGive.com – A list of shops that will donate money to charities if you go through this site before buying stuff from them. Submit your charity to their list, get your supporters to buy through them, and up to 40% of what they pay for purchases will be donated to you
  • efundraising – Charities’ Aid Foundation’s fundraising portal, allowing you to get free profiles on giving portals, register for their charity card scheme, set up donations pages on your website, and reclaim tax on all donations
  • The Hunger Site – Click on a button on this and the linked sites (breast cancer, rainforest, child hunger etc) once a day and sponsors will donate money. Ok this isn’t really for your cause but it only takes a minute so it’s worth doing anyway…
In kind:
  • Computers for charities – Cheap recycled computers for charities
  • Donate a PC – Free used computer equipment for charities and projects
  • In Kind Direct – passes on companies’ old computers, furniture etc to charities and projects for a fee
  • Good Will Gallery – Professionals (accountants, IT, fundraisers, councellors, musicians for fundraising events, etc) willing to offer their services for free and a range of free stuff for charities, from beds to computers, posted by individuals with stuff to give away

Project set-up ideas and information:

  • Global Ideas Bank – Submit or find ideas for new projects, or descriptions of how existing projects were set up

International partnership links:

  • EUCLID – search for project partners, funding, networks, events and workspaces
  • Eurodesk – Find European project partners
  • OneWorld Network – An online civil society community working for global justice
  • NIDOS – Network of International Development Organisations in Scotland

Independent Media:

  • IndyMedia – a collective of independent media organizations and hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage. Indymedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth.
  • New Internationalist Magazine – Exists to report on issues of world poverty and inequality; to focus attention on the unjust relationship between the powerful and the powerless in both rich and poor nations; to debate and campaign for the radical changes necessary if the basic material and spiritual needs of all are to be met.
  • OneWorld – provides coverage of human rights and sustainable development issues, news, campaigns, events and resources. They include the voices of those at the front line of development – the poorest and most marginalized, and those that work directly with them
  • CounterPunch – Independent American political newsletter. “Twice a month we bring our readers the stories that the corporate press never prints”.
  • FAIR – Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting – a US media watch group, offering criticism of media bias and censorship. Working to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints.
  • Alternet.org – a project of the Independent Media Institute, dedicated to strengthening and supporting independent and alternative journalism. AlterNet’s online magazine provides a mix of news, opinion and investigative journalism. The AlterNet article database includes more than 7,000 stories from over 200 sources.
  • speckz.com – Brilliant independent web hosting service with links to free open-source software and news
  • Project Gutenberg – an archive of free public domain online texts.
  • Distributed Proofreaders – the main source of PG e-books.

Travel Resources:

  • German Rail: For train routes and times to and from most European cities.
  • Seat 61: a site with comprehensive information on how to travel by train or ship from the UK to most countries in the world.
  • The Bus Station: A huge, comprensive list of the different bus and coach sites worldwide.
  • Hostel World: Search and book hostels worldwide.
  • One Travel: Book flights, cars and hotels if you’re coming from the US.
  • Travelbag: Book flights, cars and hotels if you’re coming from the UK, they’ll also create customised holdays for you.
  • Opodo: Book flights, cars and hotels if you’re coming from the UK.
  • Ebookers: Book flights, cars and hotels if you’re coming from the UK.
  • Hotels Combined: Searches multiple hotel reservation websites simultaneously to help you find the lowest rate instantly; sites they search include Expedia, Priceline, Hotwire, Opodo, Orbitz, and Travelocity.
  • RatesToGo: Searches for last minute bookings at hotels worldwide.
  • Eurocamp: Self catering camping holidays in Europe, catering for families and couples in 182 parks across 9 European countries.
  • Rail Europe: Book tickets and inter-rail passes for travel around Europe.
  • Eurostar – trains between 100 of the main cities in Europe. Eurostar trains are 10 times less polluting than flying, and from November 2007, will be carbon neutral as a result of energy efficiency changes and carbon off-setting.
  • International Rail: offers train booking and information on worldwide train journeys, with on-line rail timetables, maps and information pages; for booking travel in Europe, Australia, Asia and The Americas.
  • National Express: Book coach journeys around the UK and Europe, if you’re travelling from the UK (National Express is the UK branch of Eurolines).
  • Eurolines: Book bus and coach travel throughout Europe, if you’re travelling from anywhere except the UK. Eurolines connects over 500 destinations, covering the whole of Europe, including Morocco, Russia and the UK. Sea crossings, travel taxes and road tolls are all included in the price.

Below, you’ll find travel information for trips to our main partners:

Affordable travel options to Firefly’s projects in Brčko, Bosnia, from London:

The closest ‘budget’ airports are Ljubliana, Slovenia (Easyjet), Zagreb, Croatia (Wizz Air) and Trieste, Italy (Ryanair). Go to to compare prices from all these airlines and buy tickets. Following is a list of airports and their respective distances from Brčko, and from the Summer Camps in Savudrija, Croatia. Click here for a map showing where Savudrija is, or here for a map showing where Brčko is.

  • Ljubliana, Slovenia: 5 hours’ direct bus ride from Brčko, 2 hours’ bus ride from the camp site at Savudrija. Fly here with Easyjet (go to to buy tickets and compare with prices to nearby airports), or check on Opodo (UK), or One Travel (US), to compare prices from other airlines, since non-budget airlines will often have tickets as cheap as Easyjet or Ryanair.
  • Trieste, Italy: 9 hours’ bus ride from Brčko, including bus change at Zagreb or Ljubliana; 1 hour from Savudrija. Fly here with Ryanair (go to to buy tickets and compare with prices to nearby airports), or check on Opodo (UK), or One Travel (US), to compare prices from other airlines, since non-budget airlines will often have tickets as cheap as Easyjet or Ryanair.
  • Belgrade, Serbia: 3 hours’ bus ride from Brčko, 10 hours from Savudrija. Prices from about £99. Check prices and buy tickets through check on Opodo (UK), or One Travel (US).
  • Sarajevo, Bosnia: 6 hours’ bus ride from Brčko, 8 hours from Savudrija. Prices from about £120. Check prices and buy tickets through check on Opodo (UK), or One Travel (US)
  • Zagreb, Croatia: 5 hours’ bus ride from Brčko, 3 hours from Savudrija. Prices from about £50. Fly here with Wizz Air (go to to buy tickets and compare with prices to fly to nearby airports), or check Opodo (UK), or One Travel (US), to compare prices from other airlines.

Below, you’ll find useful sites for travel between these airports and Brčko (where our year-round projects in Bosnia are) or Savudrija (where our annual summer camps in Croatia are). From these airports you’ll have to get a bus to the main station in town to start your journey; they’re usually clearly marked so don’t be put off by that! Very few buses go to or from Savudrija; the nearest large town is called ‘Umag’, and it’s around 10km from Savudrija.

  • Slovenian Bus Timetables – Ljubljana Bus Station: The timetable for national and international buses from Slovenia, not just those from Ljubljana. It also has timetables for buses starting and finishing in surrounding countries; however only the timetables for buses to and from Slovenia are complete.
  • Slovenian Rail Timetables: This timetable gives details of trains within Slovenia. There are no direct train links from Slovenia to Bosnia; for trains to Brčko, go to the German Rail site and look for trains to Vinkovci, in Croatia, which is a 40 minute drive from Brčko, and has connecting trains to: Gunja, in Croatia, which is about 10 minutes’ drive or 30 minutes’ walk from Brčko, or Drenovci, in Croatia, which has a connecting train to Brčko that takes about 15 minutes. If you do arrive in Gunja or Vinkovci, you’ll need to get a taxi to the Gunja border (which is basically in the town center, Brčko having a slightly weird geography), since no-one in Firefly can drive across the border.
  • Croatian Bus timetables – Zagreb Bus Station: The timetable for national and international buses from Croatia. If you’re searching for buses to Brčko, and you don’t have the letter ‘?’ on your keyboard, then just enter ‘br’ and it will offer you a list of options of towns beginning with ‘Br’, including Brčko, on the drop-down menu. It won’t recognise ‘Brcko’ without the ‘?’, so don’t search for that or you might end up in the wrong town!
  • Croatian Train Timetables: this site is currently down; the German Rail site is much easier to use, in any case.
  • Bosnia Train Timetables: this site is currently down; again, the German Rail site is much easier to use.
  • Belgrade Bus Station: Timetable for national and international buses to and from Belgrade. Again, it won’t recognise the word ‘Brcko’, so if you don’t have the letter ‘?’ on your keyboard, then search for ‘Br’ and then select Brčko from the drop-down menu.
  • German Rail: For train routes and times to and from most European cities. Remember that Belgrade (the capital of Serbia, about 2 hours from Brcko) will be listed as ‘Beograd’, as English speaking countries are the only ones that call it Belgrade.
  • Hostel World: book places at hostels worldwide, including throughout the Former Yugoslavia, if you end up somewhere en route overnight.
  • Seat 61′s page on Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia: this page has lots of information, including links, times and prices, if you want to travel all the way from London by train. This will take about 24 hours (to Ljubljana), or 26 hours (to Zagreb), and should cost from about £250 – it’s much better for the environment than flying!

Currently, we don’t know of any good English-language bus or coach timetables for Bosnia – if anyone comes across one, then let us know!

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