Valerie is my Mum. She was such a special lady, as those of you who knew her are all too well aware.

Olmolog School in Tanzania
When she died in October 2003, her family and friends donated money to The Tribes Foundation, and we collected enough to help build two classrooms, two teachers houses and 10 toilets in a remote Maasai village primary school in Olmolog in northern Tanzania (see photos).

The villagers and school children were delighted, and when we went out to see the school in 2005 they welcomed us warmly with dances and songs (see video) in thanks.

Since then people have kindly continued to send in donations in Valerie's memory, so we have been able to continue our backing of the school. In 2007 we were able to give significant funds for getting water to the school. Until then children had to take turns to walk 5 miles to the water source twice a day to get water for the school.  Now, there is a water system at the school thanks to the money raised by you. What a relief for the children!

 

Trench gardens in township primary schools, South Africa
We have now chosen another project to help in Valerie's name. The current project that we're collecting for would be dear to Valerie's heart.  It involves primary school children and gardening!  It is in a poor township area of Port Elizabeth in South Africa that I have personally visited, and it is being organised by a small trust run by a wonderful friend of mine, Paul Miedema.

Here is a bit about the project from Paul:

"We have a successful trench garden at Joe Slovo Primary, where we are starting this initiative. It has been a great success, and has attracted interest from parents. They are interested why our vegetables are so healthy and big in such poor soil. We will use this as a catalyst to train parents to create there own small gardens. We have been doing trench garden training in 7 schools in Port Elizabeth, and now wish to role it into parents back yards. We will pay for the trainer to train 15 parents at a time. We will set up a seed and garden tool library, where parents can access tools and seeds. Tools can be “booked out” for a day at a time. The library will be in the school – drawing parents into the school. The initiative will be run in conjunction with the parents elected onto the School Governing Body. We hope to have 50 gardens created initially – we hope it will spread through success of produce grown. We hope 'each one will teach one' as people see this method really works".

 

We're aiming to raise about £1000 by the end of 2009.  It's a big ask, but we're going to try!

If you feel you can or want to help, please press the DONATE button now.  Even if you can tell others about this project that could help too.

And don't forget that you can also raise money for us when you're shopping. Go to http://www.gettingthereuk.co.uk/ and choose The Tribes Foundation as your cause. Then when you shop through that site, the charity gets donations.

Thanks again to everyone who has helped make a difference.

 

With very best wishes
Amanda Marks

PS: A bit of legal stuff:  Please note that the Trench Gardens are the intended next recipient for money raised for Valerie's Fund, but should anything change on this project before we make the donation, we'd like to reserve the right to choose a different project. Also, any monies over the target will be kept in the Fund for the next chosen project.