Welcome back to the Newsletter, in which we aim to keep you in touch with The Mango Tree news and stories from our partners in Tanzania and Kenya.

2013 marks our tenth year supporting communities and empowering orphans. We have been celebrating our work over the decade through a series of truly inspiring events hosted around the UK and overseas. Our grateful thanks goes to everyone who was able to join us.

In this edition you can read about the rural communities that have been benefitting from new livelihoods projects, hear back from a group from Uppingham School who visited our programme in Kenya and find out how you can support us to raise funds for our girls boarding school in Kenya as part of the Big Give Christmas Challenge in early December.

I hope you enjoy reading the newsletter. Thank you for your continued support and very best wishes,

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The Mango Tree Orphan Support Programme Newsletter September 2013

The Mango Tree celebrates its tenth anniversaryIn April and May this year we held five celebratory events around the UK to mark 10 years of The Mango Tree’s work empowering orphans and investing in African rural development.

These events enabled us all to share some of our successes over the past ten years and say thank you to many of our supporters and donors across the country. We also managed to raise £65,000, so a big thank you to all those who were able to attend and especially to our generous hosts, Sarasins & Partners in London, Mr and Mrs Jonny Brown in Edinburgh and St Michael's and St Patrick's churches in Shotwick & Patterdale. Our

Kenya and Tanzania Directors, Consolata Kunyada and Andilile Ibrahim, spoke with great conviction about their country’s programmes, the children they support and the partnerships that they have built with rural communities. 

Many of our donors were particularly impressed by The Mango Tree Kenya’s community service programme which provides work experience opportunities to TMT funded secondary school leavers. They are required to give back their time and skills by working for TMT for one year before they are supported to continue their studies at college or university.  They tutor younger orphans, build toilet blocks, create vegetable gardens for foster homes and help set up agricultural projects. 

Fredrick Opiyo Aduda is feeding chickens at the TMT Kenya model farm. When he finishes his community service placement he wishes to study Sustainable Agriculture at Baraka Agricultural College.

Sindikiza Ndugu Zetu Shule - 'Let's escort our children to school' 

TMT funded students in Kenya are starting to create a cu l tu re of communi ty soc ia l responsibility.  Former TMT student Calleb Adongo decided, after being supported with his college education by The Mango Tree, that it was time to start giving back to his community. As part of the Mango Tree Family Association (TMTFA), which is a group of former students and alumni members, he led a local fundraising campaign. They raised funds for 49 boys and 27 girls who received all the equipment and personal items that they needed to go off to secondary boarding schools in February this year.  Calleb, pictured here with his wife and

baby daughter, is confident that Sindikiza Ndungu Zetu Shule will carry on providing support to orphans in the district. He says, "It is important to keep The Mango Tree as one family and involve all the beneficiaries. The response of members (TMTFA) has been very positive and I believe we will succeed".

Girls for the Future CampaignThanks to those donors who have continued to support our work on girls education this year.  We have been able to make huge improvements to schools and Family Based Care Homes.

Girls are now able to study and do their homework after dark thanks to solar lighting, and both girls and boys are benefiting from clean water and new toilets in their primary and secondary schools. All these improvements have the effect of retaining girls in school.

A bumper fundraising year by Uppingham SchoolUppingham School has been a supporter of The Mango Tree since it was founded in 2002, and we are still their main school charity. This has been an exceptional year for support from pupils, staff and parents with close to £25,000 raised so far this year. On average each pupil has a target of raising £15 per year. With close to 800 pupils, their target for 2012-2013 was £12,000 but with sponsored triathlons and sponsored 10km runs, cycle rides, cake sales, theatre performances, branded wine, cook book sales, and concerts, they have doubled this target figure. Thank you Uppingham!

Sustainable livelihoods for orphans and people living with HIV and AIDS

In Tanzania, there are great results to report from over 70 livelihoods projects.

The Kyela Sustainable Livelihoods Project is supporting new land based co-operatives that are benefiting over 2000 people. These families are guardians of orphans and people living with HIV and AIDS. The livelihoods projects have now started producing rice, sesame, mushrooms, bananas and seasonal vegetables. Some groups are also breeding pigs, goats, cows and chickens. Various alternative l ivelihoods groups also include bee-keeping, carpentry, tailoring and soap making.

Case study: The Kisegese group of guardians and PLWHASThis group of widows, elderly carers, farmers and young parents are helping to support 49 children with their new bee keeping project.

All group members are very enthusiastic and recognise the value of working collectively.

Bee keeping can yield a good level of return allowing participants to be involved in additional income generating work.

An unwelcome visitor in TanzaniaUnfortunately fish are on the menu for crocodiles as well as humans in Kyela District!

In May TMT Tanzania discovered that a crocodile had found its way into a recently constructed fish pond in Ndandalo village that had just been stocked up with over 1,000 freshly introduced fish fingerlings.

Using a section of the original chicken wire fencing Thomas and Hamidu managed to corner the crocodile. They were however very reluctant to sacrifice any limbs by picking him up themselves. Then a brave young man simply stuck his hand in and fished him out!

Kyela Polytechnic College – a year on

One year on from the grand opening of the Kyela Polytechnic College (KPC), students have completed their first year, gaining practical and relevant skills for the market and opportunities available in the local area. The College has been embraced by the local Kyela community and is now providing young people in the district with much needed vocational training opportunities that had not existed previously. 

The Mango Tree Tanzania is currently exploring ways to integrate some components of their work with KPC. This process is part of a larger strategic aim to work more sustainably with rural communities emphasising and funding those elements which support community independence, social responsibility and self-reliance.

Uppingham students visit Kenya

Continuing a long association between Uppingham School and The Mango Tree we facilitated another hugely successful visit for their pupils in July, this time to The Mango Tree Kenya.  Both the Uppingham group and the Kenyan team agreed that the trip was a wonderful opportunity for all involved. The Uppingham girls and the Kenyan young people were able to mix and engage, laugh, sing and dance with one another while learning about each others lives. They were able to see first hand some of the important community development work going on and meet some of the project beneficiaries.

Uppingham teacher, Maria Barefoot said, “It was tremendously inspiring and made us feel a real part of The Mango Tree.”

The Uppingham girls said that, “the entire experience was humbling, inspiring and memorable.”

Our 2013 Big Give Appeal - help us build a girls secondary school in Kenya 

We have started fundraising to raise enough capital to begin constructing a girls boarding school for 320 in Mawego, Kenya.

We have already purchased suitable land, which is close to services and accessible transport routes, and we have some funds raised from Google ready to invest in the new building. We are currently preparing the business plan and are launching a campaign to raise £200,000 so that construction can start in early 2014.

As part of this fundraising appeal we are pleased to announce that we have been selected by The Big Give to participate in their Christmas challenge in early December this year. Any donations made by our supporters during this challenge will be matched by a combination of The Big Give charity champion funds and pledges made now by our regular donors.

We hope that you feel able to support our challenge by helping us double our funds. Our current pledge target is £20,000 so we hope to raise a total of £40,000 towards school furniture and equipment.

You can participate in one of two ways: either make a specific lump sum donation now towards our £20,000 pledge target by contacting William & Gail Fulton on 0151 336 7393 before October 10th. Or, join in with the December challenge yourself by donating online from 10am between Thursday 6th and Saturday 8th of December.

However you decide to participate any donation will be doubled!

You can help save our printing and mailing costs by subscribing to the longer e-newsletter version via the website or by emailing us at themangotree.uk@gmail.com. Thank you.

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