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Photos taken on the July trip:
Letters received, (53pics), General interest (24pics)
UPDATE JULY 21st: Eddie, Rachel and Abigail returned safely on Thursday 20th July. Eddie had helped put the finishing touches to the toilet block - and it should now be ready for our 19 visitors who travel out on Monday the 24th July. He also helped encourage the older children to work hard as well as going through the various policies adhered to by Bethany and the reasons for them. Rachel and Abigail spent many hours teaching the children English as well as getting involved with games and drama’s etc. Unfortunately Rachel was unwell during the last few days of her stay but with many prayers said for her she made the trip back safely to the UK where she is now recovering at home in comfort. Our thanks to Rachel and Abigail for their efforts as this trip had been planned since they first met some of the children at Spring Harvest back in March 2004. Eddie who had not been out since 2003 has now seen the new Kitchen and dining room, the new girls dorm and the refurbished clinic all completed since his last visit.
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)
GREAT NEWS: The proposed trip by 30 children to visit the UK for 6 weeks Sept 21st to November 5th is now a reality. We have both passports and visas and are now actively trying to find the cheapest air fares. We may need to fly from Nairobi to London (it’s cheaper) and then arrange transport from Heathrow to Manchester. If anyone knows a cheap way of doing this or can help in any way, let me know. Many thanks to all those who helped Bethany obtain the visas by providing a ‘Letter of Invitation’. We will be writing to you all shortly.
I have started a separate web site dedicate to the trip - click here to view.
Trip to the British High Commission - Dar-Es-Salaam Without doubt this was the highlight of the trip. After Daniel had spent several months obtaining birth certificates and then the new style Tanzanian passports it was up to the UK personnel to obtain the visas. Everything had changed since last time - The British High Commission (BHC) now requires every visa applicant to be fingerprinted (even children). This meant taking the children on a thirty hour non stop bus journey from Mwanza to Dar (via Nairobi, Kenya, over 1,300 km). We informed the BHC when we would arrive (they open 7.30am to 11pm every day) and we needed to get there early so that we could get it done in the day. We tried to book cheap accommodation but everywhere we tried was fully booked. Few places have a block of 17 rooms available at the busy season. We ended up at the Sleepinn which was really far to good for us and a little expensive (£8.50p per child per night including breakfast). However we had already booked the bus and informed the BCH we were coming and so had little option. The children set off on Saturday afternoon 1st July accompanied by Daniel and Onesmo. They arrived on Sunday evening and ate beans and rice at the Sleepinn before going to bed. They got up at 6am the following morning (Monday) had breakfast and we hired 2 daladala’s (mini buses) to take the children to the BHC. By 8am all thirty children were patiently waiting in a small ante room. They were in the room a total of 6 hours before everything was completed including a right and left hand index fingerprint impression. At 2pm they left the BHC and walked back to the Sleepinn buying food from the street traders (to save money - as beans and rice at the Sleepinn cost £1.50p per head). The following day (Tuesday) they got up very early and had breakfast at 6.30am and walked up to the bus depot and by 8am they were ready for their long journey home.
Click here for pics of the children waiting for the bus to arrive.
Click here for pics of the children’s arrival at Sleepinn
Click here for pics of the children at breakfast, Children and chips (17pics)
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 practicing dance and singing (95pics)
June Trip: This was just Dave Duxbury (plumber) and me (Graham Pountain). Dave helped finish the plumbing work on the new classroom block as well as accompanying the children on their trip to the British High Commission..
Click here for pictures of Dave at work.
Visitor: Amy Tew came to stay for a few days and was a great help filling in the 30 ten page visa application forms as well as helping Rhona with the final English exam and teaching the children a new song. Amy is at Birmingham University and is touring parts of Africa as part of her African studies course. The children will not forget here and she was a great help whilst at Bethany. Click here to see Amy at work.
New children: 1 new girl joined Bethany during our trip. Her name is Pendo Malale Kandi aged 12yrs (DOB 12/11/1993). Father died in 1999, mother died in 2001. She has 3 brothers and 4 sisters. 6 of the children were taken to live with their grandmother (mother’s mother), Pendo was looked after by her older sister who has 4 children of her own. After looking after Pendo for 3 years Pendo’s sister took her to live with her Grandfather (father’s father). He was unable to look after her and she was admitted to Bethany.
Click here to see Pendo
Building work:
By the time Dave and I arrived Stanley Burns (Rhona’s husband) had almost finished the new toilet block at the end of the new classroom block (converted clinic). Single handed he had fixed the ceilings and varnished everything. Our thanks to Stanley for all his work - he worked solidly from morning to night.
Click here to see the pictures of the building work.
Teaching of English:
Rhona (Stanley’s wife) spent many hours teaching the children English. Altogether Rhona and Stanley were at Bethany for 5 weeks on this occasion and for much of the time the children were on their summer holiday which gave Rhona the opportunity to teach all standards 1 to 7.
Rhona also helped the children write letters etc and finished her teaching at Bethany with an English exam.
Click here to see pictures of Rhona and Stanley.
Click here to see pictures of the English exam and results
Click here to see the pictures Rhona and Stanley took whilst at Bethany.
Children’s health: During our visit all the children seemed very healthy and happy. Our thanks to an organisation who provided us with 78 mossy nets. Onesmo emailed us before the trip with the following news: ‘yesterday during the afternoon we got visitors from PSI one of the American organisations which deals with HIV and malaria problems. They brought us 78 mosquito nets for the our children to use.’
Children Working: As usual the children do all the chores around Bethany. The older boys helped Dave (plumber) fix the water pipes to the roof so that hopefully the showers may have hot water when the sun shines. Click here to see the pics
Children at play: The children were on holiday from school during our visit and here are some photos of them playing. Click here
Mobile Phones: Nearly two years ago the mobile phone network was extended to cover the Magu district (where Bethany is). This has proved an invaluable aid to the smooth running of Bethany as we can now contact members of the management team at any time and likewise them with us. Before mobile phones we had to rely on emails sent from the local town (Magu - 20km away) which often didn’t and still often doesn’t work due to power failure or the network being unavailable.
Satellite dish: On this trip we were amazed to see that in our village outside one of the mud huts stood a large satellite dish. Due to the interest in the world cup this enterprising (relatively wealthy) villager had a dish, a tele and a small portable generator and was charging customers 10p to watch the football matches etc. Dave our visiting volunteer plumber was also a keen football fan and when the Tanzanian team suggested the possibility of a satellite dish for Bethany Dave eagerly offered to donate the £150 to purchase the dish (we already have a TV and solar power). After some lengthy discussion it was agreed that we should have one but that it should only be on one hour per day for entertainment and an equal amount for education (Eliada was keen to use the dish as an educational tool).
Click here to see the dish being assembled
Power shortages throughout Tanzania.
Monthly Supporters / Enquirers Meetings: The dates for the next three meetings which are all on Saturdays and are: 8th July 12th August and 2nd September 2006, . They are held at the Hope Centre, Ossy. 10am-noon. Everyone welcome. (click here for details)
July 2nd to 19th trip: Eddie Jeffery (UK team leader) is leading this trip with Rachel Louise Bacon and Abigail Barnsley accompanying him. They arrived safely and are now hard at work
July 24th to August 8th trip. This is now fully booked and is made up of the following people:
Graham and Sheila Pountain, Joan Kearsley, Cathy Riley, Sharon Gerrard, plus the group from St. James Clitheroe: Joanna Pelllet, Daniel Hughes, Luke Dyer, Rebecca Dyer, Bethany Pickett, James Murdoch, Daniel Porter plus the group from Christ Church Accrington, Kevin Logan and Ann (soon to be Logan), Tia Danning, Nicholas Hopkinson, Karen Ross, Daisy Nasimiyu and Edward Briggs. Total of 19 visitors.
The children are eagerly awaiting their visitors and are praying for their safe arrival.
Each visitor has a number of children allocated to them to look after and pray for.
Click here to see some of the younger volunteers
Click here to see pictures of the children allocated to each volunteer
Future trips -----------------------------
No further trips are planned for the rest of 2006 due to the fact that some of the children will be visiting Sept - Nov 2006.
Staff changes: None
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 here to see pics of letters received
Click here to see pics of letters being written
Click here to see the web site and apply to join.
Sponsorship web site: Shana who runs our Penpals web site is also hosting a web site dedicated to helping those who want to know more about sponsorship.
Click here to join the sponsorship web site.
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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).
Supporting Bethany
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Money boxes: As you can see our total collected from the money boxes is over £2,284 as of 7th July 2006. We initially intended running the money box scheme for 12 months (May 2005 to May 2006). We are now considering extending the scheme (with new labels for the tins) for another 12 months to coincide with the children’s visit.
Publicity cards: We still have the postcard size flyers (financed by separate sponsorship). These are now available and are ideal to give to everyone (e.g. school children, congregations etc etc.) They are ideal in the sense that they advertise the web site address and show some photos of our children. Please E-mail me with how many you would like and I will either post them or bring them to you. Click here to see the cards.
Pen pals group: Going from strength to strength
Click here to see the web site and apply to join.
Proposed work future work ; Due to the forthcoming children’s visit we are not planning to undertake any major developments until after they return. We still need to refurbish the boys dorm, provide volunteers accommodation and extend our classroom block to cater for 7 classrooms (now 3).
Satellite Internet: No further news
Photo Album: Click here for details.
Possible bore hole: No further news.
Mains Power: No news, no change. Still patiently waiting
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)
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