Dear Supporters and Sponsors,
Happy New Year to you, and a heartfelt thank you for continuing to support us in 2014. In a time when there are many charities vying for our attention, it makes all the difference to us that you continue to support the children of Magnet school in Nairobi and the Maasai people of MAPED in Tanzania. We were again able to donate over £10,000 to the projects and were able to assist them in supporting young people in helping them to have a basic education and a better start in life. Bishop Kibobi who runs Magnet continues to write to us that children in desperate situations are coming to him for help, and he feels he needs to support them despite his limited resources. Your support therefore is so needed. [Pictured above are the latest intake of children - January 2015]
Our big news story this year was the visit of Bishop Kibobi and his wife Susan. We brought them for another three week tour of English schools and churches. The trip was a great success and enabled them to strengthen old connections and make new ones. They renewed ties with Royal Russell and visited St Catherine’s in Bramley again, receiving an additional cheque for £4500 towards a new library. New schools included Dulwich College, the Redcoat school, The Royal in Haslemere, Harrow school and Cheltenham Ladies College. Churches included St Michael’s in Sevenoaks who have been supporting Magnet school for several years. Their commitment has helped us enormously in feeding, clothing and educating the young people in Kibobi’s charge. Magnet has now over 300 children in attendance, and the needs are as great as they ever were. The Bishop and Susan were also thrilled to meet up with Lady Gloria Cottesloe who started WWSL in order to help Magnet school become established. She is our Patron. We were also pleased to start a Virgin Giving page and through the active support of Jeremy Barton were able to raise a further £1500.
MAPED continued to develop this year, as they further established their cow and onion projects. We sent a grant to help them register the school and to help grow what is a relatively new school for them in their rural area. We also supported one of their resident teachers, Peter, to complete a computer course to help in the running of the school.
Magnet managed with our help to complete a Junior school staffroom and replace old wooden doors with steel ones. They received 10 laptops via the charity run by Barry Gooden and have established a poultry project which the children help to maintain. They are currently selling 14 trays of eggs a day and also using chicken eggs and meat to help with the children’s diet.
Future Developments
Magnet wants to complete its library, having faced considerable hurdles with planning permission costs, and seeks to improve the education of the children by providing better staff accommodation in the hope that they can attract well qualified teachers. A team of boys from Dulwich College will be visiting in July and hope to raise funds to support a project of their own choosing when they get there. MAPED continues in its hope to establish a sustainable cow project and develop more classrooms as the children move up a class each year and thus expand the size of the school. Your donations will continue to help with this.