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)
March trip 2007: Graham Pountain, Jemma Turner and Roy Sagar all got there and back safely. Jemma helped by Roy gave English lessons to the 8 children waiting to come to England to attend Accrington and Rossendale College.
Budget controls: Onesmo commented that he found the new budget controls (introduced by David Borland) helpful and also that now we had mastered the priority payment facility we could now transfer money from the UK to Tanzania within a few days to meet any emergencies etc.
Accounts: We have just had our 2005-2006 accounts audited and they can be downloaded here or from the ‘Financial Reports’ index on our home page.
New children: We now have 114 children. 8 more children than we reported last time. Click here to see the new children. Details will be entered into ‘Meet the children’ shortly. Forever Angels - Mwanaidi and Neema: Both girls have now been there just over 4 months and are doing well. Amy ( the manager at Forever Angels) is looking at the possibility of taking them on as full time employees in the near future.
Accrington College: 8 of our children who have been offered 12 months tuition at Accrington and Rossendale College and are now preparing for the visit by learning English etc. Daniel has obtained birth certificates and is now applying for passports. After that we only have the visas to obtain from the British High Commission in Dar-es-Salaam. Click here to see their photos.
Choir: Bethany children still spend many happy hours singing and dancing (mainly Swahili). The only distraction for the boys is football! Click here to see the pics.
Appointment of Teacher: Daniel has been looking for teachers prepared to work at Bethany to fulfill the vision of helping these children. We have been looking for teachers who are not wholly motivated by money. Eventually Daniel found someone who he thought might be interested. He visited Bethany on Sunday 16th March and left full of enthusiasm accepting the wage offered and making plans for the timetable etc. He sent a text the following morning asking that we pay him nearly twice as much as he had accepted the day before. Sadly he will not be joining Bethany.
Building work progress: We now have three new building projects and two major repair items. Our new large multipurpose unit that can be used for both classrooms and accommodation. It will consist of three large rooms and 4 smaller rooms plus its own toilet block. Click here to see the pics Full time married volunteers accommodation. We expect it will be used by Daniel and Eliada and baby Ruth. It will have its own shower room, toilet and three bedrooms. Click here to see the pics.
New male and female pit latrine: Has for the time being been abandoned due to the amount of rain that keeps filling the hole we dig.
Security wall around our raised water tank and UV filter has now been completely rebuilt.
Underground water tank which collapsed during recent heavy rainfall has had one wall rebuilt and we now have the timber to brace the inside of the tank so that it does not collapse again.
Award by NSSF (National Social Security Fund): Officials from the NSSF Office in Mwanza visited Bethany to check our records with regard to payment and deductions of money. They later said that they were so impressed with the work being done and the good behaviour of the children that they would like to make a contribution. They arranged to visit Bethany together with the District Commissioner Mr. Matthew Nasei on Thursday 15th March. They told us that they had only made two awards in our district – us and the local government hospital. We gratefully received the 200 kilos of rice and the 30 litres of cooking oil.
TRA (Tanzanian Revenue Authority); We have been advised for some time that as a charity involved in aid work we were entitled to VAT exemption (currently 20%) on major items we need to purchase. Daniel our administrator visited the TRA office but found them initially unhelpful. We invited the Officer in charge at TRA to visit our project which he did the same day. After touring Bethany and meeting the children he is now fully convinced and is prepared to help in any way he can as well as giving us VAT exemption certificates when needed.
Children’s health: On this visit nearly all the children were well with only minor ailments to be dealt with
Children’s behaviour: New children often find it difficult to adapt to what is the norm at Bethany. We were surprised to see how violent new girl Susanna was towards the other smaller children. We expect this to change in the next few days. Monthly Supporters / Enquirers Meetings: The dates for the next three meetings which are all on Sundays at 2pm and are: 1st April, 6th May, 3rd June and 1st July 2007.. They are held at the Hope Centre, Ossy. 2pm. Everyone welcome. (click here for details)
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 on the headings to see the photos: Letters received, Letter writing, Click here to see the web site and apply to join. Future Trips: Easter trip sees Eddie and Heather Jeffery together with their two children Alex and Rebekah along with Ian and Samatha Kelly, Tim Green, Kieran and Annmarie McManus. April 30th to May 14th group consisting of: Graham Pountain, David Borland, John Brindle, Pat Bridge, Rebecca McCavana, Zoe Richardson, Christina Langan, Victoria Delaney, Sean Martin, Martin Palmer,
Summer Trips: Now finalised. Three groups are going out covering the period from 16th July through to the 7th August totaling 24 people. They are: Graham Pountain, Sheila Pountain, Lisa Barnes, Kate Martland, Annemarie Morgan, Graham Nightingale, Gemma Nightingale, Michael Dalby, Diane Dalby, Luke Dalby, Mark Harrison, Aimee Hardwick, Laura Marsh, Gemma Lowe, Paul Pountain, Rebecca Pountain, Stewart Hopkinson, Susan Hopkinson, Nickolas Hopkinson, David Shaw, Victoria Shaw, Karen Ross, Steven McLean and Andrew Wood.
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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). _____________________________________________________________________________
Money boxes: As you can see our total collected from the money boxes is over £4020 as of 11th December 2006. 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
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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