PAST / CURRENT PROJECTS
BEREGA - TANZANIA
Jonathan and Mary Northway with
their young son Joe have decided to extend their 5 year stay in Tanzania and
continue their work in Berega Hospital. Jonathan is the head Doctor and Mary
assists both there and at the Orphanage. TWOAT previously supported them with a
donation to the LandRover which they took out with them, with the cost of ward
refurbishment which was funded equally by TWOAT and the Missionary Group of the
Church of the Good Shepherd and most recently with the provision of a portable
generator which can both light wards at night and drive the water pump in their
well
EL SALVADOR
– MOTIVATION
We were very distressed
when we heard of the earthquakes that devastated Motivation’s wheelchair
manufacturing facility in El Salvador last year.
Sadly one of the disabled workers there lost his life in this disaster.
Various contacts and Friends of TWOAT donated additional funds that
enabled us to send £300 to help with the rebuilding work.
EL SALVADOR
– COMUS
The
earthquakes also damaged the agricultural improvement projects, run by Jaimie
Coutts and as a consequence we also sent them an additional £300 to help
purchase rebuilding materials. Work
continues in developing production of organic fertiliser and in the training of
small-scale farmers to improve their agricultural output through the
Agricultural Centre. We have
already sent £900 to the project this year and have agreed to continue this
level of support for another two years.
Jaimie has a new project to
encourage mutual support between rural communities in dealing with such problems
as the earthquake disaster. TWOAT
funds are helping to facilitate this.
PERU - SAN
ANDRES CHILDREN’S HOME, CHOSICA
Our
donation last year helped towards the building of badly needed new showers and
toilets for the children and we have had a very appreciative note and
photographs from The Revd. Brian Attwell thanking us all.
The Home continues to take in orphaned and disabled children when it can
and to help single mothers by caring for their young children during the daytime
whilst they seek work in Chosica. We
have now agreed to send regular annual gifts of at least £750 to the Home.
BRAZIL -
MIRASSOL PROJECT
If handicapped children
cannot walk unaided the local schools will not take them, so Tim and Fatima
Phillips have used funds raised in Brazil and the UK to establish their Robin
Hood Centre to help them with both healthcare and education.
It isn’t plastered or decorated yet but Tim hopes to pay for this by
selling English lessons to local business people.
TWOAT has been able to supply physiotherapy equipment and funds for a
fresh water drinking fountain. Tim
and Fatima have already seen some of their children learn to walk well enough to
be accepted in the local school.
GAMBIA - ST
JOHN’S SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF
Last year TWOAT paid for enough hearing aid batteries
for two months for the entire school at a cost of nearly £350 and also books on
up-to-date teaching techniques for the deaf. The headmaster, in acknowledging
the gifts, said: “ On behalf of the deaf students, staff and parents, I thank
you and the entire membership of the Trust for these invaluable gifts and the
generous assistance you continue to render to the School”.
SOUTH AFRICA
– HELWEL TRUST
We have supported the
Helwel Trust with funds to help build a pre-school in Zululand and to provide
classroom furniture for it. We
welcomed one of their helpers as a speaker at our Annual Social Meeting (last
October) whilst one of our committee, John Allinson, visited the actual school
during a trip he made to South Africa last Autumn.
GHANA –
SCHOOLS
In a letter of thanks
for our donation of £250 the headmaster wrote: “Most of our people are poor
and are unable to cater for their children’s education. It is very heartening therefore that your donation has helped
provide books, slates, and chairs and tables for some of the children.”
VOLUNTARY
SERVICE OVERSEAS
The volunteer we are
currently supporting is Dr Riley who is working with a project in Mozambique.
She is a fully qualified medical doctor (from Reigate) who will be
returning from Mozambique after a 2-year assignment.
ROMANIA -
PROJECTS INTERNATIONAL
Last year
TWOAT’s donation of £500 went towards important maintenance activity that
needed to be undertaken on playgrounds we have previously helped to finance.
INDIA –
NURSES’ TRAINING, LUDHIANA HOSPITAL
Mary Heath was able to
meet and talk with the student nurse, Bency Daniel (aged 19), whom TWOAT are
supporting for three years. Her
family, which includes a mentally retarded younger brother, had been unable to
pay her college fees after the first year as her father’s income from making
bakery items had fallen and she would not have been able to continue her
training without our help.
This
school, of about 150 pupils, is an attempt by a small group of village people to
give their children an education equivalent to that available in cities. TWOAT
has supported the costs of some of these children whose parents cannot pay the
fees. The latest news is that exam
results have been very good. The
Principal, Miss Kamla Sawney, has told us she would be very glad to have visits
from volunteers who could give her general help for a few weeks or months.
THE
PHILIPPINES – ASCT (SCHOOL AND ORPHANAGE)
We have had several letters, cards and photographs from Ruel Luarca
thanking us for paying his accommodation costs after he was made homeless at the
age of 12 years in a mudslide disaster. He
is much happier now that he has settled into his new environment and has
confidence that he will be able to complete his schooling.
In his second letter he writes: “my wish in my life is come true and
hope is in yours also.”
SEND-A-COW
(FUNDED BY SALES OF THE SMOAT COOKBOOK)
We have been able to reimburse our colleagues in SMOAT for the printing
costs of the Cookbook from sales already achieved. We have also been able to send an initial contribution to the
Send-a-Cow (Stockaid) project that is doing excellent work helping poor families
in Africa to get a start with some breeding livestock.
Mike Fox (350452) still has some cookbooks (£5.99) if you want one.
BookAid is
an organisation that sends second-hand books in good condition and usually not
over 10 years old for use in the developing world.
Books should be educational, which can include,
for example, atlases, travel stories, etc as well as textbooks.
Offers to John Allinson.
GAP YEAR
STUDENTS
Claire Bedelian stayed on in Dar es Salaam to help with the
administration of the Frontier Charity after her initial ecology project was
completed but the assignment has now been completed and she has been able to
attend some of our events to talk informally about her experiences.
Anna Page wrote to us at the completion of her project:
For the last 6 months I have been in Bamako, the capital of Mali in West
Africa, on a volunteer project, working in a school for mentally disabled
children. It soon became clear that
my help was most needed in a class for older boys, aged from 15, up to as much
as 30. Here they were supposedly taught life skills and trades to assist their
integration in to normal society in later life, but in practice, the meagre
activities provided were far too advanced for many of the students and the
teachers ended up getting on with their trades; painting, traditional mud cloth
printing, etc, while the boys watched, or played djembé drums or generally ran
wild. After a very wobbly start and many struggles, by the end of the year, I,
together with another English girl volunteer, managed to establish a timetable
that involved art activities, drawing and colouring, and basic writing, maths
and geography for the more able students. With money we had raised beforehand,
we bought supplies of stationery and art and craft materials, a storage
cupboard, a blackboard and display boards to assist us in our efforts.
These will be left for next year and the future when we very much hope
that the work we started will continue. I think the most important things we
provided them with though were the ideas and inspiration. We showed the school
that even the very simplest of activities can be very beneficial to the boys’
development, and are greatly appreciated by them. I would like to thank TWOAT
for their support in my African adventure.
Vicky Capel spent an academic year teaching biology and
chemistry in Uganda. She has
written to us describing how well the children have reacted to her “new”
teaching methods. They had been
used to “chalk and talk” but now the senior class sometimes arranges benches
in circles rather than rows to undertake projects, for example understanding
about tooth decay using their own experiences.
GAP
YEAR PROJECTS - NEW
We are
supporting an expedition of local teenagers to visit Berega Hospital (see above)
and help decorate wards this summer.
OTHER
FUNDED PROJECTS