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Changing lives by thinking small
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 Home   What we do How you can help Every penny counts Thank you KTCT Apply for a grant Contact us |
I was in touch with John Humphrys soon after his article appeared in the Daily Mail in 2005. What he wrote about so movingly was exactly about the life Alison and I deal with on a daily basis for some three months of each year in Kenya. It is lovely for us to know that the Kitchen Table Charitable Trust has recognised our work to help under-privileged children and have done so very generously. I know John is extremely busy (I listen to him almost daily, like millions of others) but if he ever slows down to a blur perhaps you would thank him most sincerely for what he started to help the poor in Africa. Harry Vialou Clark Chair Rwanda Group Trust.  "This is just a little update on the progress of the school in Nakuru. The extra classrooms for the school have now been built and the new term will start in them on the 8th January. The bishop has also told me that he has been able to realise his longtime wish to start an orphanage out in a country village where his wife's family have a house (large mud hut!) which they do not use. He took me there when I visited them and saw the clean country environment in the rift valley and the large field and garden where children could play and learn life skills. The village is called Elementaita. He has told me that the orphanage is starting this month with 10 children. I feel sure that your generous support has enabled him to make a modest start with this orphanage in addition to the school building project which we have been working for." The Ghanaian villages of Gyetiase and Tadiesa have recently been attached to the mains water supply and the 1,700 villagers are now being trained in health and hygiene. But this would be of little value if they continued to share only ten latrines between them, with most villagers using the bush round their houses as an alternative. In consequence, the mortality rate - particularly among infants - is astronomical. Many people suffer from diarrhea or dysentery much of the time, and there is a real danger that cholera or typhoid may suddenly wipe out large numbers. Kitchen Table Charities’ grant will help provide materials and training to enable each family to make one latrine. It will also pay for medical treatment to tackle some of the sicknesses resulting from poor water and lack of hygiene in the past, like worms and a particularly virulent eye infection. This grant won’t just bring a big improvement to the quality of the villagers’ lives: it will save many others, particularly those of the children. On behalf of the villagers, we would like to thank Kitchen Table Charities and say how extremely grateful we are for this support. May God bless you and all of yours. Solo Filthy water cannot be washed, but we can help the community to protect a spring and provide a number of wells to give clean, safe water. Water from a secure source, and fit to drink. Water which meets our basic human need. Water which the community tells us is their number one priority. With KTCT’s support, more than a thousand people will have decent water for the first time.
Mike Frost I am writing to let you know how very grateful we are for the promise of £6000 from KTCT. We will use this money to pay for four teachers to teach at Bwafwano School in Zambia, a school set up to ensure that local orphans have access to education. Zambia is home to over one million orphans; most have lost their parents to AIDS. Most cannot pay the £20 or so it costs to go to state schools each year (covering uniforms, fees and books) and therefore simply miss out on education. Bwafwano School is a non-government school, set up and built by the community in a desperately poor township. By avoiding government schools, children can avoid fees and compulsory uniforms. However funds are still needed to pay teachers and those teachers should be qualified so that the children have a good chance of passing national exams. Your donation will enable 600 children to learn under the instruction of four qualified teachers. This chance will give them self respect and the reassurance that they are not ‘nobodies’ but of equal value to non-orphans. It is a reason for them to hope for a better future. We look forward to keeping KTCT in touch with the progress of the project. With so many thanks, Veronica Oakeshott With your wonderful contribution we now look forward to installing a pipeline for the villagers of Foroforo and Changarawe Kulasi which will make all that a thing of the past. Thank you. Vivien England "Every year CCBRT enables many thousands of blind people to see and disabled people to walk. We treat babies with spina bifida and women with fistula, a terrible condition that can destroy their lives. And it’s because of help from charities like the KTCT that we can do it – even if our patients can’t afford to pay a penny towards their treatment. Joyce was born with one clubfoot. Her young life was a misery. We operated on her and now she can run and play like any other child. Rehema was playing near a pan of hot oil and it spilt onto her hand. Her fingers were left fused together and she lost the use of the hand. Again, we operated and it will soon be as good as new. The lives of these two children would have been hopelessly blighted without CCBRT – or, more specifically, without your help. As we say in Tanzania: “ Asante sana”. Many thanks." "KTCT's kind donation to Stepping Stones Nigeria’s work will make a massive difference to the lives of hundreds of street children and orphans in South-eastern Nigeria. Having often endured the horrific stigmatisation of being branded as ‘witches’ or ‘wizards’, regular beatings and complete lack of food and shelter they will now be given the chance to better their lives. Thanks to KTCF over 70 children will be able to attend our school, fittingly dressed and with a full belly. With the funding for the snail and grass cutter farms, the children will learn self-sufficiency and valuable revenue will be raised for the school. The harvest of your kind act will surely be reaped for years to come". "You have just made a small group of dedicated volunteers in Nigeria extremely happy. Thank you very much for your vision of helping small charities such as Stepping Stones Nigeria. The donation will make a massive difference to the school project and to the work of CRARN. When we told CRARN about this they were absolutely ecstatic as they had been operating on next to no funds for months now. Children had even been leaving the camp to return to the streets as CRARN could not feed them all. This will no longer be the case thanks to KTCF. We will inform you of all developments relating to the use of the grant and promise to spend every penny with great care." From Forever Angels: The Trustees of Forever Angels would like to express our heartfelt thanks to the KTCT for your generous donation enabling us to purchase vital items for our new Baby Home in Mwanza. With your support we can provide essential lighting and power to the Baby Home from our own generator, safeguarding against the daily power cuts. A fridge, cooker and washing machine will enable us to provide a safe and healthy environment more efficiently, allowing more time to be devoted to the physical and emotional needs of the babies and infants in our care. Thank you also from the children who will benefit. From Wonder Welders: With the money kindly donated to us by KTCT we have been able to build our capacity as well as increase productivity by employing and training two more polio victims at the Wonder Welders workshop. We have extended and improved the work space so we have a larger area for the expanding number of welders to work in, and surfaced the floor properly. Two new welding machines were bought along with five special auto-darkening welding helmets, which protect the welder’s eyes whilst he is working. From Street Child Rescue Tanzania: Through the generous support of KTCT we have been able to guarantee premises for our work, in conjunction with a Tanzanian NGO, for the next year. They have paid rents on properties as well as employing an additional social worker to assist with the children. We were in such need, that the probability of our not being able to meet rental demands was acute and but for KTCT's input, we are not sure our work could have been able to continue at the same level as in the past. The money had guaranteed the continued presence of much needed care for as many street children as we can help at any one time. 'Our' children are getting a better life NOW and the chance of a better future, because of it. The Tanzania Development Trust thanks the KTCT for its generous support of the development projects in Tanzania. It makes a huge difference to the lives of the rural poor and goes a long way to imbue them with a spirit of hope. The funds we direct towards projects act as a catalyst, enabling whole communities to lift themselves upwards, enhancing individual and communal opportunity. You have provided funds for the first phase of a village health centre in Kikukwe and also for the provision of clean water to 3 schools and the installation of hygienic toilets in 2 schools. Here's what Michael Njumba, the Chairman of the Kikukwe Community Development Initiative (KCDI), has to say " Thank you very much for your efforts, time and funds extended to this village community which shall activate the villagers' efforts to achieve a better life. We shall make a big step in raising the standard of living of the communities through the health centre and more hygienic conditions in the schools. Only God knows what is in our heart, as our appreciation on your eye of sympathy. The good news of your support has been forwarded to the Villagers of Kikukwe of which apart from appreciation has opened another page as a gold page of relationship". KCDI is a Tanzanian NGO founded to engage the villagers of Kikukwe in their own development, claiming their rights and exercising their responsibilities. The main objective is to bring rapid development through capacity building, gender sensitization and the improvement of village social infrastructure and services. Progress is being made through the sound implementation of a long term, well thought out strategic plan which involves the villagers and encourages a spirit of volunteerism. TDT has previously supported a group of AIDS widows in Kikukwe with equipment and training to learn how to keep bees and produce honey. It is truly wonderful that this can now be followed up with significant steps forward in the health of the community through the generosity of the KTCT. You have also generously supported a very vulnerable group of people (about 80) at Mji wa Haruma who would be homeless without the unstinting efforts of Father Biseko and his helpers in Musoma, by Lake Victoria. He provides a refuge with great human compassion for old widows left in hospital or abandoned by relatives; abandoned babies; lepers; mentally sick; AIDS patients, and orphaned children. The home operates on a shoe string. Many residents sleep on the cold concrete floor. Beds, blankets, pillows and towels are in short supply, and also mosquito nets. The message from those who work with such kindness in this home is "thanks to all the members of your organisation for thinking of Mji wa Haruma. Please accept our best wishes in your noble work of uplifting the lowly". We can't thank you enough in KTCT for finding the time and energy to tap into the generosity of the British public to come to the assistance of other human beings in Tanzania who have to face up to so many more difficulties and problems in the struggle to achieve even the most modest of goals. Thank you, thank you. With best wishes from TDT - Robin Newell |
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© Kitchen Table Charities Trust 2005 | Reg. no. 1110829 |