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How it all started
It began with discussions on where we
would go for our summer holiday in 1988. I wanted to go to some
interesting off the track location, my wife said well I am not going
anywhere there's not clean toilets!
The discussion could have ended
there had it not been that my wife seeing an add in World Vision's
Impact magazine for a 21 day tour of Thailand and Bangladesh - 70%
tourism and 30% visiting projects.
Surely World Vision would not give us
any rubbishy accommodation or put us in places where there would no be
clean toilets she said.
On this tour we visited a village in Bangladesh where in two years World
Vision had installed a school, water supply, and toilets.
Women in the
village were giving birth to up to 20 children to get 4 of them to the
age 20 so as they had someone to look after them in their old age. ' No
social welfare here'.
All
of a sudden children were no longer dying from water born diseases and
we now had a population explosion.
Our group of about 40 were asked discuss with the women of the village about birth control, especially
the number of children we had. Some of our group had 1 others 2 we
had 4 - 'who is going to look after you in your old age' they asked.
It
was during this time that I found my mind wandering and I kept thinking
what are these women going to do if they are not rearing children - they
were not welcome in the fields this is mans work. They were all well
dressed even though they had no money. What if I was able supply them
with 50 pedal sewing machines (US$5000), would World Vision be able to
teach then to sew and start and run a business.
'Eighteen months later
we received in the mail a parcel of good clothing!'
12 years later, they were
employing 600 people and exporting worldwide.
What this
had told me was clean, potable, water was to key that changed the lives
of these people.
From then on most of my 528 projects have been to
supply water be it wells, capped springs, damming underground rivers,
rainwater harvesting from iron roofs, gravity fed pipelines.
Time spend walking up to three 12 km
round trips to fetch dirty contaminated water, now means children
(particularly girls) is now spend in school and mums are able to work in
fields growing crops for consumption and sale.
In 16 countries, Bangladesh, Uganda, Papua/New Guinea, Somalia, India,
Honduras, Rwanda, Tanzania, Nicaragua, Zambia, Vanuatu, Myanmar,
Afghanistan, Malawi, Tonga, New Zealand over 190,000 people have
benefited from these projects
Droughts and starvation is now rare
As result of these projects peoples lives have been changed
Projects Commissioned
in 2014
With Godius Gordian
Graduation as a carpenter at Trade Training School in Bukoba Tanzania we
are now able to put our resources in helping our other Sponsored Child
Vincent Austin in Onga Malawi.
We visited Vincent in November
2014 - click
here to see some pictures
The Commissioning of 37 water
wells at Lipiri in Malawi brought the attention of many public
dignitaries. The opening ceremony went on for 2 hours with much
rejoicing. Click
here to view
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The opening of 5 km extension to
the Nyakibimbili Gravity Fed water scheme provided a further 5000
people with clean potable water. Click
here to view
Rainwater Harvesting is very successful for
schools especially where an area gets a steady amount of rain year
round. Schools often have large areas of iron roofs which are a good
water catchment.
Levolosi Primary School drinking and hand washing
water. Click
here to view pictures
The installation at Kitefu Primary School of two
50000 litre rainwater harvesting tanks made it possible to install a
block of 24 toilets with hand washing facilities and drinking water
fountains. Click
here to view pictures of the opening and community rejoicing
Installation of two 50000 litre rainwater
harvesting tanks at Sakila Secondary School is providing drinking water
for this large school. Click
here and view pictures of the opening
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5 years ago, in conjunction with Faye Cran
(Mama Kuku) and the then
new Rotary Club of Tengeru we built the Margaret Stanton Preschool.
In the previous 6 months 6 young girls had been raped on the way
to preschool.
The need for a good primary school in the Nguruma Area became evident so
the development of the Keith Stanton English Medium Primary School. The
picture above shows the completed school that was officially opened on
4th May 2016. Designed for 290 the school now has 880 children
Riccarton Rotary have have supported us by installing a playground
and playground equipment.
Click
here to view pictures of the community opening of
the finished school and
here to view the
Riccarton Rotary playground
Faye Cran Chem Chem Primary School and Mama Kuku
(mother chicken) Preschool. Usa River Tanzania a community of 85000
people without a public school was selected as the ideal place to erect
a school in recognition of the 100,s of projects that Faye Cran has
organised for Rotary in Tanzania. A tireless worker for children and for
Rotary. The Faye Cran school will provide 1460 children with education
for the first time.
This picture shows 1st intake of Children
In June 2018 we completed phase 1 of
Luguru Water project in Tanzania. This provided 3500 people with fresh
potable water. This proved to be a very successful water source and we
decided to continue and complete phase 2 in June 2021
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