Our Promise

We promise to be honest and open about where your money is spent and why we ask for donations. We will show you what a difference you are making.

What is The Bhopal Medical Appeal and what do we do?

The Bhopal Medical Appeal (BMA) is an independent, non-profit organisation and is registered as a company limited by guarantee (Company No 5826888), incorporated on 24 May 2006, and received charitable status on 9 January 2007 (Charity No 1117526) and in Scotland SC043904. Legal responsibility for the management and stewardship is vested in the Board of Trustees.

Its objects are:

To alleviate the suffering of people who were directly or indirectly affected by chemical disasters anywhere in the world and in particular but not limited to in the city of Bhopal, India, in the aftermath of the Union Carbide disaster of December 3rd 1984 and other places in the world in such manner as the trustees think fit.

We will protect your data

Your data is safe with us. We take our obligations very seriously and we will never sell your data to third party organisations. We will only contact you via methods we have received your consent for us to use and you can contact our Support Services Response Team any time you wish to change the way we contact you or opt out of future communications.

We are respectful

We will not put undue pressure on you to make a gift and if you do not wish to donate we will respect your decision.

We are accountable

We do all we can to ensure fundraisers, volunteers and third party agencies working with us comply with all fundraising regulations and this promise. Where we work with third party agencies we will ensure training is provided and will monitor their work. We will act quickly if they do not meet the high standards we set.

We keep in touch

We will always provide easy ways for you to contact us and our Support Services team is on hand to help answer any queries you may have. If you are unhappy with anything we’ve done you can contact us using our complaints policy. If we make a mistake we will apologise and do all we can to put things right and if we cannot resolve your complaint, we accept the authority of the Fundraising Regulator and the Charity Commission to make a final adjudication.

If you have any questions please contact BMA Supporter Services:

  • By telephone:01273 603278 or via our Freephone answering service 0800 316 5577
  • By post: Supporter Services, The Bhopal Medical Appeal, Community Base
    113 Queens Road, Brighton BN1 3XG

Legitimate Interests

Under the new data protection law, starting in May 2018, we have a number of lawful reasons that we can use (or 'process') your personal information. One of these lawful reasons is called 'legitimate interests'.

Broadly speaking, ‘Legitimate Interests’ means that we can process your personal information if:

  • We have a genuine and legitimate reason and we are not harming any of your rights and interests

So, what does this mean? When you provide your personal details to us we use your information for our legitimate business interests and provide funding which enables us to carry out our work at the Chingari Clinic in Bhopal. Before doing this, though, we will also carefully consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights.

Some typical examples of when we might use the approach are for preventing fraud, direct marketing, maintaining the security of our system, data analytics, enhancing, modifying or improving our services, identifying usage trends and determining the effectiveness of our campaigns and fundraising.

Our Vision

The vision for The Bhopal Medical Appeal encompasses the following:

  • to support the work of organisations providing free medical care to people in the city of Bhopal, India, who are suffering from injuries caused by exposure to toxic gases released in the Union Carbide disaster of December 3rd 1984;
  • to support the work of organisations providing free medical care to people in Bhopal who are suffering health problems as a result of contamination of soil and water by toxic chemicals leaking from the abandoned Union Carbide factory;
  • to support free health education efforts in Bhopal, including community self-help programmes to combat tuberculosis and other rife diseases, and to provide guidance on safe drinking water, hygiene and other important health-related topics;
  • to support the work of organisations seeking to improve the lives of children born with malformations in the city of Bhopal;
  • to support medical research into the problems suffered by persons exposed to toxic gases and water in Bhopal, paying particular attention to newly emerging problems, in order to further knowledge about the long-term effects of these toxins on human health, to develop treatment protocols, and to publish its findings for the benefit of all in medical journals such as JAMA and The Lancet;
  • to support efforts to bring clean water to the affected communities in Bhopal, and other objects which clearly benefit public health, such as the clean-up of the contaminated factory site and thorough remedial action on the poisoned soil and water;
  • to support efforts for the social and economic rehabilitation of people who are unable to earn a living as a result of their exposure to gas- and water-poisoning in Bhopal, recognising that poverty and the inability to earn have major impacts on health;
  • to support efforts to hold Union Carbide Corporation and its owner the Dow Chemical Corporation responsible for funding proper medical research, monitoring and long term medical care of the victims, including those born after the disaster who are found to have been affected, and to release all available medical information on the leaked gases and toxins;
  • to co-operate, share information and expertise with, and to offer support to charities and organisations working for the medical and social benefit of victims of chemical disasters in other parts of the world;
  • to offer support where appropriate to any other efforts which directly or indirectly benefit the health of the people of Bhopal, and of other places which have suffered chemical disasters;
  • to promote or carry out research;
  • to provide advice;
  • to publish or distribute information;
  • to co-operate with other bodies;
  • to support, administer or set up other charities;

Our Objective

Caring for survivors of the world’s worst industrial disaster in Bhopal, India, and for people everywhere suffering from chemically caused illnesses and supporting activities to prevent such disasters in the future.

The BMA will use various ways to achieve our mission and to support our objectives: we believe that people who share our values would love to know how to support us. We will process the personal information you have supplied to us to conduct and manage our charity, giving you the most appropriate marketing, information, service and provide the best and most secure experience. These are what we consider to be our 'Legitimate Interests'.

Our Interests

The following are some examples of when and why we would use this approach in our work to help gas-affected people in Bhopal:

  • Direct Marketing: We will sometimes send postal marketing and fundraising asks which further the aims and objectives of The BMA. We will also make sure our marketing communications are relevant for you, tailored to your preferences.
  • Your best interest: Processing your information to protect you against fraud when donating on our website, and to ensure our websites and systems are secure.
  • Personalisation: Where the processing enables us to enhance, modify, personalise or otherwise improve our services/communications for the benefit of our supporters.
  • Analytics: To process your personal information for the purposes of customer analysis, assessment, profiling and direct marketing, on a personalised or aggregated basis, to help us with our activities and to provide you with the most relevant information as long as this does not harm any of your rights and interests. Please see 'Building profiles of supporters' in our Privacy Policy.
  • Research: To determine the effectiveness of promotional campaigns and advertising and to develop our communications, systems and relationships with you.
  • Due Diligence: We may need to conduct investigations on corporate supporters, potential suppliers of goods and services to determine if those companies and individuals have been involved or convicted of offences such as fraud, bribery and corruption.

We will also hold information about you so that we can respect your preferences for being contacted by us.

Your interests

When we process your personal information for our legitimate interests, we will consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights under data protection and any other relevant law. Our legitimate business interests do not automatically override your interests – we will not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).
For more information about your rights, please see 'Your Rights' in our Privacy Policy.

Remember, you can change the way you hear from us or withdraw your permission for us to process your personal details at any time by using the contact details in 'Contact Us'.

This document was last updated: February 2024

Want to talk?

For main switchboard and business enquiries, or to get in touch about our work in Bhopal and our campaigns or to make a donation, please call 01273 603278.

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