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Dear Friends,
I would like to start by wishing you all a happy new year. Christmas here was, of course, a time of celebration and fun.
The Childrens’ Christmas Party proved to be a big success. Over 60 children came, the office was alive with chatter and laughter.
After some colourful face-painting many games were played including pass the parcel, musical statues, orange bobbing, balloon relay and a dancing competition.
Country fowl (chicken) and rice was on the menu. Our only mistake was to insist that everyone had to eat some salad before their main course. Salad is not a normal dish for Kom children and most of it ended up on the floor, in bins or behind chairs. Maybe next year we’ll try just giving them each a raw carrot!
A big thank you goes to Carolyn Freeman for her kind donation towards the costs. And another big thank you to the organisers and the lucky ones who cleared up the mess afterwards.
Plans for 2009
2009 is a busy year for the orphans project. Our family is growing. Over the coming months we will be welcoming both new sponsors and new orphans. 2009 will see us:
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Taking on a second local fieldworker to work alongside Hazel. Job advertisements are already out and soon we will be interviewing candidates.
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Doubling the number of orphans, bringing us up to 70. We are starting to update profiles and to prioritise those in greatest need.
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Doubling the number of sponsors. We will soon be ready to send out profiles of orphans who need sponsoring.
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Moving to electronic accounts and sending sponsors printed sheets rather than photocopies of the handwritten accounts (which will be much easier for you to read and understand – thank you James for your help with this).
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Forming a 5-year partnership with Voluntary Service Overseas ( www.vso.org.uk) who will provide a Project Supervisor and on-going support for the orphans project. This should start in June 2009 and will provide the long-term continuity that is needed for the orphans project to really develop to its full potential.
After school building
We have land. We have sand. We have cement. We have stones. Mud bricks drying in the sun (and getting wet in the rain, unusual for the dry season!). Yes, the building of the afterschool is just starting. When finished we will have our own two classrooms, close to 3 Corners in the centre of Belo. We will have somewhere to keep teaching resources, to develop the after school programme and to help provide a better education for more children.
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This project would not have been possible without the support of many individual donations, made both privately and through Afri-link, Kirabo and our new partners AQA from Italy. A big, big thank you to you all.
Goodbye to Moneybookers
The years of struggling with the complex on-line money transfer system, Moneybookers, have finally come to an end. From now on, all payments can be made through the normal banking system to the charities Afri-link (for UK sponsors) and Kirabo (European sponsors). All sponsors should have received details of the new banking system for sponsorship payments.
This should make sponsoring a lot easier and allow regular payments to be made automatically through standing orders. We know that many of you have had problems with Moneybookers at one time or another. Thank you for your patience.
Best wishes
Niall Holland
Project Supervisor
To contact us direct please write to
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To find out more about KIRABO please visit www.kirabo.eu
To find out more about Afri-link please visit www.afri-link.org
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