SAN ANDRES HOME, CHOSICA, PERU

The Home for orphans and abandoned children continues to grow in size despite the recent sad death of the founder Brian Attwell.  They needed a further £2400 to complete construction of an extra classroom. We have sent this so it can act as a memorial for Brian. His widow Betty is overjoyed.   When the construction is finished, the Orphanage will be able to offer schooling to poor local children as well as those living in the Home.  

COMUS, EL SALVADOR (SPANISH WEB SITE)

This self-help organisation of poor small-holders continues to do well under the guidance of Jamie Coutts who has relatives in Tadworth.   They still hope to expand the market for their very drinkable coffee into Europe.   We have increased our contribution to the annual wage of Alfredo, the local manager, to £1870, which is nearing the national average for his type of work.

ST JOHN'S SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF, GAMBIA (DANISH WEB SITE)

The School continues to thrive and we sent £600 in February for staff training. The School’s great supporter in Denmark, with whom we have worked over the years, has made a remarkable recovery from her very serious illness last year.  We are hoping that she will come and talk about the latest news from St John’s at our annual meeting in October. 

‘SAFAD’ (Cranfield University) PROJECTS, various countries

Last year we sent £500 towards the building of a dam in India which will serve local villages during times of drought and we are hoping to have a report on this soon.  This will be the final year of funding SAFAD projects as we are concentrating more on those with a ‘local’ link. 

THE ‘HELWEL’ TRUST, Kwa Zulu, Natal, SOUTH AFRICA

We have continued to support the Trust by sending £900 for the training of “practitioners” in Early Childhood Development in Kwa Zulu Natal in South Africa.   Essentially, the practitioners help poor children to learn to mix and play with others and to get ready for schooling, a very necessary requirement in South Africa. 

THE ‘KAKAMEGA PROJECT’ (RUSH), KENYA

Elizabeth Noble, a Reigate resident, and her friend Joan, continue to be very active in helping the village and have a very able local man, Andrew, who co-ordinates much of the project work when they are not there.    We have sent £1000 this year for the renovation of the local doctor’s clinic and the provision of some much-needed ‘long drop’ toilets. 

CROYDON NURSERY SCHOOL, BAKULI, UGANDA

This project is concerned with providing elementary education to poor children.   We have given £360 this year for the final year’s education of two of these children.   As with SAFAD (above), we have decided to focus more on projects with a local link so this will be our last year supporting the Nursery School.

THE FUNDING NETWORK (TFN) , Various countries

We have continued our membership of the Network.  We have given a total of  £400 to two of their projects in the last year - one helping female students at a High School in Afghanistan to raise money to pay for their school fees and then earn a living afterwards and the other to help women in India earn a living by mushroom growing.   We hope they will consider supporting a solar lighting/power project for one of our current projects in Tanzania later this year.

THE LAKE MALAWI PROJECT

We have continued to support the £800 annual running costs of the AIDS Clinic which is testing, treating or providing advice to individuals at the rate of about 40 – 50 per month.  About 10% of those visiting the clinic are under 15 years of age.  In addition this year we have started to support the annual salary costs of an agricultural advisor which are £250 per year.  It is rather appropriate that we have funded this through selling teas & cakes which we are kindly allowed to do by Elizabeth and Keith Lewis when they open their garden in Tadworth as part of the National Garden Scheme. 

IMAGINE , MOZAMBIQUE

We have continued to support the AIDs homes run by Imagine with a further donation of £850.  Mozambique is in the top ten of poorest countries in the world with 75% of its population trying to survive on an income of just over $1 per day.  They have a new web site where you can learn more about their work at http://imaginemozambique.org/default.aspx  

CALCUTTA CATHEDRAL RELIEF SERVICE, INDIA

Kachuberia Development Action Group is an Indian voluntary organisation working to improve conditions in some very poor villages in the delta area of West Bengal. They have asked CRS to use their expertise to provide pre-school education and health care in four villages. Because of extreme poverty and illiteracy, some parents do not think of educating their children, although government schools are within reach. So the programme organises community workshops, pre-school education for 3-6 year olds, health care etc., so that the children will be able to benefit from formal schooling when the time comes. As part of this activity, an educational centre needed renovation of roof and toilets. The TWOAT  2010 Christmas appeal raised £1000 towards this, and Mary Heath was able to visit the project last March, and to talk about it on her return to TWOAT members at one of our Teas & Talks events.  

SANGAM SCHOOL, NORTH INDIA

We continue to provide £550 per year to cover the costs of one of the teachers at this school in one of the poorer areas of rural India. 

VSO, UGANDA & ETHIOPIA

Joanna Griffin has now finished her time as a physiotherapist in Gondar University Hospital, Ethiopia.  She has been teaching undergraduate students and holding workshops for the staff.  In addition she has written the curriculum for an M.Sc in Physiotherapy which is designed to meet the specific rehabilitation needs in Ethiopia.  Joanna hopes the Master's course will help prevent skilled professionals leaving for other countries.

Now we are supporting Dr.Ashtin Doorgakant, an orthopaedic surgeon at Ntcheu District Hospital, Malawi. Like many of the VSO volunteers, he finds himself learning complicated surgical techniques beyond any he has yet met in UK, and trying to improve simple things in the hospital such as the filing of X-ray records and persuading his colleagues to cooperate. He writes with enthusiasm of obtaining tricycle wheelchairs for some of his amputees, using the charity 'Malawi Against Physical Disability' and donations from friends.  

RAINBOW AFRICA, ZAMBIA

We continue to sponsor Andrew Gumbo to go to Rainbow Africa Primary school in Livingstone, Zambia and a little girl called Zangi Ngulube whose date of birth is 29.03.04. She is the grandaughter of one of the staff on the Livingstone site.  Her previous sponsor pulled out, leaving Zangi with a need to be re-allocated. She is in the pre-school and should just have moved up into the Omega class for her last year at pre-school. Zangi is a lively child, with an outgoing personality.  She enjoys school and has a close relationship with her grandfather. 

PAPUA PARTNERS, WEST PAPUA (NEW PROJECT)

This is a new project supported by TWOAT which has its roots in Surrey.  It was founded by a Surrey resident to address problems she encountered during a visit to the region.  She now lives in West Papua which is one of the most impoverished regions in the world.  Papua Partners is active in encouraging self-help groups, one example being to help women to breed rabbits both as a means of supplementing diets and something to trade with other communities. We have committed to provide £1200 a year to them for 3 years to cover the costs of Yetina, who is a native Papuan employed as a health worker. You can learn more about Papua Partners by visiting their web site http://www.papuapartners.org/   

AMBONDROMIFEHY WATER & NURSERY SCHOOL PROJECT, MADAGASCAR

The village of about 5,000 inhabitants had no publicly available fresh water, no sanitation and no nursery school for children under 6 years old.  We provided £1,000 to enable the completion of a fresh water well, a toilet and shower block. We are working on this project in conjunction with the Mothers’ Union which approved further funding to complete the nursery school. The fresh water part of the project is completed and is providing valuable and much appreciated benefits to the poor of this village community. It has reduced the effort required for them to obtain water. It has improved water quality and sanitation and these in turn will produce health benefits for the community.  The local church has completed the construction of the building to be used as a Nursery School. The project has funded and built a fence to make the Nursery secure and the local community are providing the gate and sign. A qualified teacher has been appointed to run the Nursery and she has received additional pre-school training. She will also have an assistant. 

It has been decided to open the Nursery in September 2011 at the beginning of the new school year and the minimum furniture and equipment needed has been ordered. All those involved in the project and the villagers are very excited. The running costs of the Nursery School will be covered by small fees paid by the parents of the children attending, contributions from the church and by growing some fruit for lunches in the school grounds. There is, however, still a shortfall of some £1,000 from the equipment budget that the project group had originally set for the opening of the Nursery School, so the need for additional donations is still high.

NEPALESE SCHOOL TEACHER , KERUNG, NEPAL (in the foothills of Mt Everest)

We are assisting with the enlargement of the primary school by funding one extra teacher as the school has to cope with an influx of pupils from the other side of the valley, now that a new bridge has been constructed. In the words of Rudra, our local contact: 'all of my villagers and teacher have been sent me so many times to thank all TWOAT supporters and friends in UK for providing a teacher. It makes to them big difference in poor villagers for developing education sector.'   

Mtandika Trade School (Tanzania),At our last ASM we raised £700 for this project when Michael Agius, our contact with Sister Barbarina at the Mtandika Trade School, spoke enthusiastically of all the work being done.  This has enabled the kitchen building to be finished.  We are now planning a presentation for TFN to provide a new solar lighting system.  

BREAD (Berega Hospital, Tanzania).

At our Barbershop evening raised £500 which will be used to improve water storage facilities in the village of Berega, Tanzania.  BREAD is chaired by Gary Mann who lives locally and was founded with help from Dr Jonathan Northway during his assignment at Berega Hospital.

WHEELS FOR THE WORLD (NEW PROJECT)

We were introduced to this project by a health worker in Epsom. It collects and refurbishes wheel chairs and encourages trained health professionals to visit and help their use in poorer countries. We gave £400.

OTHER PROJECTS

In addition to the above we have continued contact with or given financial support to St John Eye Hospital (Jerusalem) from which we have very sad stories of eye operations in Gaza having to be completed during power cuts by the light emitted from a mobile phone, Street Child (India), SOS Children’s Villages last year for our support), Practical Action, Light Force International in Albania/Serbia/Croatia, Caring Hearts in Kazakhstan. We are supporting a local student with her Gap Year teaching in India and a nurse at Ludhiana Hospital and we have continued to send old hand tools to TFSR for renovation and despatch to poor countries, contact John Allinson (213347).

REPORTS FROM EARLIER YEARS