Happy days - Pikilily (www.pikilily.com) now has a workshop space near Lake Victoria in Mwanza, Tanzania, just a stone's throw from town!

This workshop will provide a place for women apprentices to learn their very first motorcycle maintenance skills and before too long, open the gates to paying customers, enabling them to earn an income.

Many of our customers will come from the 4000 motorcycle taxi drivers in Mwanza, who are in great need of a reliable, safe & good value motorcycle maintenance service - impossible to find at present. Consequently right now, poor maintenance is costing riders precious time and take-home pay, but also sadly too often, their own lives and that of their paying passengers.

We can't wait to help & get started in our workshop but first, we need to raise some money to make it possible!

We need to raise £500 to complete the refurb of the workshop. This would pay for watertight roof on entire premises, secure door and metal grill window to store room plus gates to main entrance, levelling & concrete the floor smooth in apprentice working area, fitting seating & working space in training room/office area and painting the Pikilily mural.

In addition, we need to raise the funds to pay the next 12 months worth of rent - its £50 a month.

We need tools, materials and equipment to equip each of the 5 workbenches in the apprentice area. The list is long but to give you an idea, a spanner would cost roughly £5, pliers £10, brake bleeding kit £30, set of torque wrenches £50 and in my wildest dreams (!), a hydraulic bench would cost £350.

To say thank you, a "Wall of Thanks" will form the backdrop to our work area. Names, countries & messages of support of those donating to this campaign will be written on there, nestled around our Pikilily logo mural, reminding us each day of our friends across the globe who helped make this community project possible. The wall will appear in our upcoming regular workshop vlogs!