Photos taken during the April - May trip 2008 (over 400)

Chores (64pics), Hippings School (6pics),  Letters (51pics), Computers (10pics),
Assembly and Presentations (12pics), Choir Practice (109pics),  Building work (30pics),

Volunteers (83pics), Girls at Forever Angels (2pics),  Games (6pics), Groups (27 pics),

Individual Children (69pics), New girls (6pics)
__________________________________________________________
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

April - May trip more good news:

On the trip were volunteers from Accrington and Rossendale College: led by John Brindle, Rebecca McCavana, Christina Langan, Martin Palmer, Michael Lambert, Sean Martin, Andrew Robinson James Critchley, together with Carmen Blamey, Ho Ying (Lee) and Graham Pountain (co-ordinator). Rebecca, Christina, Andy, Carmen and Lee helped with the education (English and computers). John, Martin, Sean, Jamie and Michael were busy making 29 beds, 10 tall bedside cabinets and 10 under bed boxes as well as other maintenance work.

Click here to see our volunteers

Agriculture

As the growing season is over Daniel has been concentrating on improving the landscape around our various buildings: (see below)

Landscaping:

Much of the land around our accommodation, dormitories and kitchen has been cleared and the team at Bethany have constructed two large roundabouts and a large concrete shape in which to grow some very beautiful plants. The children water them morning and evening and are taught how to care for them. Whilst there one of the plants was damaged by dogs fighting and the children looking after them (the plants) were very upset. Click here to see pics

Dairy Cows:

Our dairy cows a bull and three calves are all doing well and still providing us with all our milk.

Refurbishment:

This is almost complete and we have decided that three of the refurbished units will house our toddlers and the fourth will be used as an office (temporarily). Each unit has a separate room for the care worker, a toilet and shower and enough beds to house about 8 toddlers. Originally we intended to leave the floors concreted but decided that they would be much more hygienic and easier to clean if we tiled. This is our last job and we hope to finish the work in the next week or so. Click here to see pics
Bore-holes:
We were almost ready give the go-ahead for his work to start but have heard reports from people in the area that it is very likely the water from the bore-hole would be unusable. We know that the water from the bore-hole at the local secondary school is very salty and will only produce about 8 buckets of water per day.  Other people have advised that we will need to go deeper than the 50 metres proposed to find good water in sufficient quantities. Until we find out more we will delay the start of the drilling or indeed abandon the idea all together if we are not confident the bore hole will be a success.

New Children: We have six new girls and will include details shortly. Click here to see pics

Children: We now have 122 resident children on site, 6 in the UK studying and 4 training at Forever Angels and two are working full time. click here to see pics of the  girls at Forever Angels.

This month we caught 4 boys stealing. One of the boys Ally Ghati (16yrs) was reported to the Social Welfare Officer in Magu who advised that he should be to taken to the police station where he was questioned and detained. The Social Welfare Officer will recommend him to be sent to a new approved school recently opened in Mbeya.  We will not be accepting Ally back at Bethany as he had a history of stealing which goes back many years and recently he had been found hiding in the girls dormitory and started to pester some of the girls. We hope that approved school will help him to change his ways. One of the other boys was returned to his relatives and the other boys were given final warnings. We have also heard a report that one of the boys (Lufuta) who we returned to his distant relatives due to his constant stealing at Bethany has been murdered by a group of stall holders who caught him stealing 200 Tanzanian shillings (approx. 11 pence). He was well known by everyone for miles around that we was a thief and it did not come as a surprise that eventually he would be caught red-handed and suffer the consequences. Other than this no major problems with behaviour at Bethany on this trip.

Bethany Students in the UK.

First the not so good news: It is with very great sadness that we have to tell you that we now have only 6 of the original eight students studying with us in the UK. You may recall that Andrew was returned after only a few months for for his inability to adjust to the behaviour required by Bethany. He is still at Bethany and we are trying to find him employment (e.g gardener). Eva and Labani were on final warnings. Eva tried very hard but proved unable to resist the temptation to steal a mobile phone from her placement. This left us with no alternative but to return her to Bethany.  Eva seems to have learned her lesson and since her return to Bethany she is now working full time for Bethany implementing what she has learned at College looking after a group of toddlers. You may remember that Eva was the first person to pass her theory driving test (first time). Jesca took her test and scored 49/50 for the multiple choice questions but failed on the hazard perception part. On Jesca’s second attempt she scored 50/50 on the multiple choice part and also passed the hazard perception. Frank and Mwita who have both been receiving driving lessons both failed their theory tests on the first and second attempts and so their chance of taking the practical test has now passed. Only Jesca will be able to take her practical driving test. 

Now for the better news: Rehema is progressing well - she is working hard and her behaviour has improved during her stay with us. Rehema has been told by Amy at Forever Angels that she should not have any difficulty finding a job with the Child Care certificate she is working towards. Even now she is applying to an International school (English speaking) in Mwanza where she is hopeful that her application will be looked on favourably as she has a good grasp of English and training in child care. Jesca has also been offered further education next year at the College and is looking forward to returning. The four boys are all doing OK with Labani managing a distinction in one of his tests. They struggle with written tests due to their lack of English and some of them are having to resit written exams. We are hoping that we will have no further incidents of bad behaviour to report in the final few weeks of their stay.

News just in: Rehema and Jesca have both received distinctions for some of their assignments.

Choir: We are hoping to bring the Bethany choir to England next year and so they have started to practice their English songs once again. We have 17 short videos for you to watch 4 of which have been added in the last few days (taken in May) click here.

 Click here to see the pics.

Building work progress: We have two new building projects. We are pleased to report that we have received the VAT exemption for the cement mixer and the two brick making machines.

New boys dormitory: As you may already know we have the drawings for the new boys dorm. It will hold a maximum of 148 boys which will double our accommodation capability from 130/140 to over double that number. The plans show two toilet blocks and one shower block, 7 dormitories and 2 smaller rooms for older boys/ storage. David our Treasurer has estimated the cost to be about £80,000 which we haven’t got so we will build as funds allow. Click here to see the plans  (Click here for pics of our present boys dorm).

Dining room and Kitchen: Our present dining room has a capacity to seat 70 children - so we have two sittings. Daniel has expressed concern that we need to consider extending the dining room and kitchen before we build the new boys dorm. We are considering doubling the width and adding a few metres to the length to seat 250 children. To do this we need to move 3 of our old containers next to the containers at the top of the site. Daniel has reported that the work on moving the containers has already started.

Children’s health: On this visit no one was admitted to hospital and nearly all the children were well with only minor ailments. (malaria, infections, coughs and colds etc.).

Children’s behaviour: No problems at present with our children at Bethany Tanzania.
Monthly Supporters / Enquirers Meetings: The dates for the next three meetings which are all on Sundays at 2pm are: 1st June, 29th June, 3rd Aug 2008 . They are held at Christ Church Hall, Christ Church Street, Roughlee Road, Christ Church Square, Accrington Lancashire. BB5 2LU. Everyone welcome. (click here for details)
Pen pals group web site: This group continues to write to our children with letters of encouragement. Some pen pals are now becoming sponsors. Our visiting teams help write letters for the children. Click on the headings to see the photos:
Letters received, Click here to see the web site and apply to join.
Future Trips: See details on our home / index page.

Please email if you are at all interested

____________________________________________________________________________

Sponsorship - Finance: As ever - finance is an ongoing concern. For those still considering sponsoring or co-sponsoring please see our list of names for sponsorship. Click here
To learn more about sponsorship we have produced a 4 page Question and Answer sheet (click here).
_____________________________________________________________________________
 

Money boxes: As you can see our total collected from the money boxes is over £8,460.44 as of 25/05/2008. Cathy Riley is still looking after the new money boxes, both issuing them, banking the proceeds and issuing receipts. If you want one email Bex and she will pass on your request to Cathy.

Satellite Internet: No further news. Still too expensive

Possible bore hole: See above

Mains Power: No news - still waiting

UK team changes: None.

Tanzania team changes: Silas and Rebecca are starting a probationary period.

OTHER NEWS

And Finally: Thank you so much for being interested enough in our work to be reading this. Even more if by your donation you have made this work possible.

N.B. (Please note that this web site is accessible world wide and so we are very careful to only publish the bare facts as truthfully as possible. There are often circumstances upon which decisions have been made which we feel unable to publish. Please contact us directly if you need to know more)

Return to monthly history

Click on pictures to enlarge

For seven years of past news reports  click here

 - YouTube -
Video May  2008
Sunday Service song
Our God is an awesome God
Sunday Service fun time
How great thou art

It would be really helpful if supporters would rate and comment on the videos via Youtube

Choir Practice

Eva back at Bethany with Ruth

FUNDRAISING?
We have  joined ‘JUSTGIVING’
which should be a great help for those thinking of raising money through sponsored events
(e.g. Marathons etc.)
Click here for more information

 - YouTube
We have now included some short video clips of the children on YouTube for all to see:
Message from Emma
Oh be careful little eyes
Any dream will do
The lion sleeps tonight
Choir Practice
Spring Harvest 2004
Celebration of new dorm
It would be really helpful if supporters would rate and comment on the videos via Youtube

Plans for new boys dorm to accommodate 148 boys.
click here for larger plan

Classroom work

Hippings uniforms

Paulina helping

Deborah watering the flowers

Late afternoon - unloading the timber for the renovation work

Photos taken during the January -February trip (over 500)

Agriculture (54 pics),  Dairy Cows (37 pics),  Toddlers Dorms -refurbishment (39 pics),

UV Filter (8 pics), Small solar water heater tower (78 pics),

Large solar water heater tower (92 pics), Groups of Children ( 40pics ), Sunday Service (26pics),

Individual Children (99pics),   Boys Portrait Pics ( 61pics),  Girls Portrait Pics (62pics),

Standard 1 Children (9pics),  Swinging Fun ( 20pics),  January trip volunteers (38pics),

Letters received (31pics), Danger children at work ( 81pics),  Views around the site (22pics),

Sunrise-sets (40 pics),  David’s Pictures (69pics), Eliada and Daniel’s new baby (4 pics),
(Captions with names of children have been added by Eva, Jesca and Rehema)

Extract from ‘Amy’s News’ from the Forever Angels web -site

Photos from the September trip 2007 (over 500)

Mwanza Lion’s visit ( 3pics), David’s Pics ( 30pics), New Manager’s house (14pics)

Around the site (12pics), Beans and Rice! ( 16pics), Old Boys dorm (17pics),

Tint Tots dorm (13pics), Letter writing ( 28pics), Local school bore-hole (4pics)

At Play ( 19pics), Agriculture (23pics), New Multi-purpose building (16pics),

Education ( 6pics), Letters received ( 85pics), Groups of children (26pics)

 Singing and Dancing ( 62pics), Individual children (81pics), Chores (59pics)

 Ian Redfearn (15pics),   Sunrise/sets (34pics), Best Photo’s (36pics)

Report: by Ian Redfearn

Latest News September 2007: Our 8 students have now just finished their first day at Accrington and Rossendale College. Here are the latest pictures:
Welcome for Students at Accrington and Rossendale College (65pics)

Day out to Lord’s House Farm (30 pics)

A walk in the countryside (72 pics)

_____________________________________________________________________

Photo’s from the July-August trips: (over 600pics)

Mkula Orphanage (3pics),  Letter writing (43pics), Rounders (36pics),

Letter received (44pics), Skipping (23pics), Play (21pics), Football (8pics),

Crop growing (38pics), Groups of children (36pics), Lessons (13pics)  Chores (64pics),
New Children (9pics),  Individual Children (71pics), Singing Practice (45pics),

Building progress (26pics), Visitors (52pics), Views (39pics), Thumbnails (40pics),
Minibus (9pics), Accrington College students (8pics)

Photos from the May trip (800+)

New wedge-wood Shoes (16 pics),  New children (11 pics),  New bike (12 pics),
Volunteer joiners (120 pics),  Chores (28 pics),  Building work progress (29 pics),
Letters received (16 pics),  Lessons (77 pics),  Games (15pics), Play (25 pics),

Singing practice (126 pics), Groups of children (45 pics),  Individual children (65 pics),
May visitors (65 pics),  Village school (38 pics), Views (120 pics),

Last day at Bethany - all children with work done (67 pics)

Reports from May trip:

Report by John Brindle and Pat Bridge,  Report by Victoria Delaney,

Education facilities (as of May 2007),
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Photos from the April trip (52): Assorted (52 pics)
Report from April Trip: by Heather Jeffery

Pictures from the March 2007 Trip (over 500)

Maize harvest (40 pics), New Children (8 pics), Letters received ( 51 pics),
Letter writing (17 pics),  Individual children (50 pics), New multipurpose block (29 pics),
New volunteers accommodation (22 pics), Choir (58 pics), Children playing (20 pics),
Children at Work (24 pics), Food! (22 pics), Groups of children (22 pics),
Jemma and Roy (25 pics), Jemma’s (51 pics), Roy’s (66 pics),

Sky (47 pics)

Photos taken on the January 2007 trip (over 300)

Portrait Pics of girls (57pics), Portrait Pics of Boys (49pics), New Children (3pics)

Children at work (47pics), Groups Children (36pics), Individual Children (48pics)

Letters log-book (4pics), Accy College Students (8pics),  New Exercise books (13pics)

Sunrise-sets (152 pics)

Photos taken before, during and after
the children’s visit to the UK (Sept 21st - Nov 6th) (many)
Thumb nail pics (27pics), Manchester Science Museum (47pics), Letters received (75pics)
Nyangeta’s new leg (6pics), Baby Ruth (22pics), Forever Angels (1 pic), 
Groups of children (43 pics), Singing Practice (73 pics),  Blackpool Zoo (142 pics),
Asda Accrington (9 pics), Fire Station - Accrington (50 pics), Ger-Hana (47pics)
Blackburn Rovers (24 pics), Gifts from America (7 pics), October 20th (36 pics),
Accrington College awards (15 pics), Bethany Hillside Nursery (19 pics),
Paul and Rebecca’s wedding (66 pics), September 28th (25 pics), Trutex Boxes arrive (4 pics)
St. Thomas’s Centre (43 pics), An English Playground (10 pics), Schools Work (92 pics)
B&Q visit (14pics), Ripon Cathedral (9pics), Central Gospel Mission, Nelson (27pics),
Local Primary School Tanz. (23 pics), Jemma’s Pics (23pics)
Children at work (32 pics), At Play - Tanz (14pics) Individual children (101 pics),
Water carrying (20 pics), Hapiness (2 pics), Manchester and Doha Airports (13 pics)
Arrival - Bethany (17 pics), Nairobi Airport 4hour wait (27 pics), Trampoline (18pics),
York visit (19pics)

Video footage:

Accrington College presentation (2.28mins - 28meg)

Photos taken on the July - August trip (over 800)

New outfits for the Bethany Choir (34pics), Doing the chores (16pics), Line dancing! (96pics)

English Lessons (34pics), Skipping and Games (25pics), Groups of Children (14pics)

Individual children (56pics), Donated percussion Instruments (9pics), Letters received (46pics)

Letters sent (3pics), Letter writing (67pics), New children (12pics), Return trip (52pics)

Singing practice (137pics), Sunrise - sunsets (70pics), Donated towels & clothes (11pics)

Trip -outbound (38pics), Views from the water tank (14pics), Visiting Teams (70pics)

Wildlife (20pics)

REPORTS by visiting group members: Cathy Riley, Rebecca Dyer, Karen Ross,

Photos taken on the July trip:

Letters received, (53pics), General interest (24pics)

Photos taken on the June-July Trip (over 750)
Dave at work (11pics), Amy Tew (15 pics),  New girl - Pendo (4pics)

Building work (30pics), Rhona and Stanley Burns (12pics), English Exams (32pics)

Stanley and Rhona’s photos (63pics), July Volunteer’s children (17pics),

Children working (21pics), Children Playing (29pics) Individual Children (79pics),

Groups children (16pics), Waiting for the bus (38pics), Sleepinn arrival (50pics),

 Sleepinn breakfast (24pics), Children with passports group A (12pics),

Children with passports group B (11pics), Children with passports group C (11pics),

Bus depot -1 (28pics), Bus depot -2 (20pics), Children and chips (17pics),

Letters received (43pics), Letter writing (33pics), Satellite Dish (11pics)
Children practicing dance and singing (95pics), Sunrise (34pics)

2min VIDEO ‘FUN DANCE PRACTICE’
click here to download (low qualilty), click here to download (medium qualilty)

Photos from the April trip (over 550 photos)

New Children (13pics), Children at work (31pics), ‘100th Child’ party (50pics)

Building work-new classrooms etc. (28pics),  Letters received (34pics),

Letter writing (12pics), Joinery work (50pics), Plumbing work (26pics),
Teaching the children (English) (17pics), Children’s tooth care (9pics), Play (27pics),
Games (14pics), New seesaw (21pics), Singers (30pics), Visiting team (43pics),
Sponsored children (28pics), Groups of children (35pics), Individual children (50pics),

Members of the July Trip (4pics),  Sunrise/sets (29pics)
Reports on the trip by: John Brindle, Wendy Whitaker
and from a previous trip July 2005 by Gary Nolan

Photos from the March Trip (over 360) click on the various headings

Airport (15pics), Building work (29pics), Famine relief (8pics), Food! (37pics),
Groups of children (57pics), Individual children (88pics), Letters received (35pics),
Letter writing (25pics), Melissa (7pics), New children (22pics), Sunrise/sets (46pics)
Children working the land (22pics)

Photos from the January 2006 Trip (over 300) click on the various headings

New children (8pics), The visiting team (65pics), Villagers (105pics)

Inividual children (108pics), Groups of children (19pics), Activities (9pics)

Dining room (17pics), Singing (45pics), Awards (9pics), Letters (70pics)

 72 children still need
sponsors/co-sponsors.
Here are some of them
Click here to go to our sponsorship page