Latest News

Paul Bradford’s challenge

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On 15th April, Paul will be running the Bungay Blackdog Marathon and needs your support. He has today created a Just Giving page to help with his fundraising, so please help him along. Paul is a teacher at a primary school that is in the early stages of linking with a primary school in Ilongero. The kids could do with a few educational resources and may be playful ones too and all the funds Paul raises will go to the primary school. Here is what Felicity, our Trustee, teacher at the UK school and project co-ordinator said about this new project. "I am wanting to introduce the kanga project … read more »

Girls’ hostel opens, 1st February 2012

The opening of a hostel for girls

"For me and Gloria, the head of Rural Women Development Association, there could not have been a more wonderful end to Wednesday 1st February, while we were actually conversing on Skype. A rather long email from one of our volunteers Nicole arrived packed with news and ideas. Near the end of it, Nicole announced, rather casually, that “the girls have moved into the hostel this evening”. This seemingly ordinary event for Nicole was to Gloria and me the final chapter of a nearly 3 year long drawn out battle with the authorities. Of course, we knew we had won the battle when last November we … read more »

Yoga mat bags

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Early in June 2011, a few women asked if we could help them learn to sew using pedal powered machines and may be start businesses. We asked around to see who else would be interested and soon had 15 women, mostly young ones keen to give it a go. We asked Sister Michaela and her staff Lidia and Anna from the local Catholic Mission if they would provide for an intensive 3 months course for them as they had sewing machines lying idle most of the time. In return the Mission would benefit from an additional income to help them with running their school for disabled girls. Classes were attended 4 … read more »

Monday’s wonderful news

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Tetra Laval International SA have chosen the kanga project to be their beneficiary charity this Christmas. Expensive Christmas cards have been replaced by a donation to us and an electronic card bearing a message of support for our sponsorship programme. We can't thank them enough. So thank you, thank you, thank you. We are really chuffed to get this support (can you tell?) and are keeping our fingers crossed that some of the many people who will get to know about us will perhaps become interested in helping a girl get the education she needs to get herself and her community out of … read more »

Sponsoring in time for the new academic year

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January is the start of a new year for students of classes I to IV at Secondary Schools in Tanzania. This new year we want to help more girls start and complete a secondary education and so we are adopting a new sponsorship system. Sponsorship monies will now be pooled rather than individually granted, giving us more flexibility in matching a gift to a need. You see, we have found that sometimes all a girl needs to carry on with her education is for her fees to be paid, while for another it is a uniform, or simply the comfort and energy of a meal during the day. Others, on the other hand may … read more »

Volunteers’ blog make up and updates

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Our volunteers have started updating the blog with their impressions and news of projects. We have plenty of both in the making so stay tuned in. But could not resist showing this picture today (not that one, although it's great, click on read more. Narrative to follow in a few days. … read more »

Our volunteers are settling in nicely

Nicole, Maria, Jess & Ben

It would seem that the guys in Tanzania have not been following our orders of not feeding the volunteers (see previous post). Here are their first impressions sent by email. Nicole:"I will start with the house in Ilongero – it is lovely! We were all pleasantly surprised I think. We have been enjoying sitting out the back in the afternoons and taking in our view. Not to mention our lovely neighbours. We had dinner in Dar es Salaam with Gloria and Bonne before heading off to Dodoma. Gloria was wonderful and very helpful in getting us on the right bus – the bus stations can be a bit … read more »

Don’t let our volunteers suffer

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Jess and Ben's 13 mile run around Oxford recently has raised just over £2000 for our projects (cheeeeers!). Projects that they are going to be helping with, when they arrive in Ilongero on 10th October along with Nicole, an intrepid traveller from Australia. We have set them goals that will stretch their skills, patience, stamina and health to the limit (not least due to the language barrier). So if they thought running 13 miles was hard........ they'll soon found out what they are really made of. Raising the money target to £3000 might make it a bit more comfortable for them; we'll feed … read more »

Suzanne has left some of our village leaders, gobsmacked

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A few months ago, Suzanne our latest volunteer told us about the spectacular nutritional claims of the Moringa tree and asked if she could introduce it to the community during her stay if they were not already aware of its immense properties. If, like us, you have never heard of it, its potentials will just amaze you. The Moringa tree or horseradish tree or Mlonge tree (in Swahili) is best known for its exceptional usefulness as a food and medicinal plant. Nearly every part of it can be used in one way or another to benefit humans and provide food and other valuable materials for farming and … read more »

Thanks Rebecca & Will

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Without breathing a word to us, Rebecca and Will set up a Just Giving page to raise money for us by climbing Mount Meru in Tanzania. They are keen to see more girls get an education. Well done guys for achieving your target of £200 and we'd love to know how you got on. … read more »

Great photos of new and ongoing projects

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One of the great bonuses of having volunteers on the ground is getting some new photos. Renee Martin has kindly added a great deal of material to our gallery. We have created three new albums in the picture gallery - sewing classes, lifeskills project and girl sponsorship. We have added new photos to the mud stove project with photos of Maria putting her new acquired skills into practice by training women in the art of building themselves a fuel efficient stove. Our community projects for women's gallery has been updated as has Ilongero training centre with the official site marking and … read more »

Our little miracle by Renee Martin

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I am very pleased to announce that despite school holidays and closures as well as my limited time here, we were able to launch a peer educator train-the-trainer programme on June 27th with ten students. (check here for pictures) We started with 5 O-level girls and 5 A-level boys nominated by peers and the headmasters, but have ended the first week of training with 7 A level boys and only 3 O level girls. A few of the nominated girls ended up being too shy to participate productively let alone consider facilitating sessions of their own. Although the groups are being trained in … read more »