Aspect Capital is holding a sponsored “Bikeathon” in June. Aspect employees will attempt to cycle over 2000 miles (3344km) using stationary exercise bikes over a one week period in our Portman Square office. To put this in context, this is the distance covered by the 2015 le Tour de France!

The goal is to raise a massive £25,000 for The Mango Tree, which is a UK registered charity operating in Tanzania and Kenya, dedicated to creating sustainable education for Children.

In addition, Aspect will match any donation pound for pound - we are thus hoping to raise a total of at least £50,000 for the Mango Tree. 

The Mango Tree is a charity that began life by supporting orphans in Tanzania and later extended its reach to include Kenya as well. The Mango Tree is a focused but extremely efficient operation and over the last 10 years or so it has strengthened its impact and turned its attention to making a long-lasting sustainable difference to the communities it serves.

Aspect has supported The Mango Tree for many years and we have seen them grow and flourish over this period.  The charity began in 2002 after Willie Fulton and his wife returned from a trek in Tanzania having seen first hand the effect of the AIDS epidemic.

A fundamental pillar of African society has always been the duty of the extended family to support any members of the household in need of help. But this traditional strength has, in rural impoverished societies, been put under immense strain as a result of the AIDS crisis. For more than a decade now communities have been collapsing across the continent as too many children, who have lost one or both parents to AIDS, overwhelm family members already struggling under the burden of persistent poverty.

The result is that whole families are dragged too far below the poverty line to survive. Severe malnutrition, preventable diseases and infant mortality rates increase. School attendance rates plummet, and many are forced to migrate from their villages to become urban street children, creating many challenging social problems.

The Mango Tree Orphan Support Programme believes this snowball effect to be one of Africa's most appalling problems. Over 12 years they have developed what we think, is an innovative, effective, sustainable and cost effective way of tackling the issues at their root.

Since 2002, The Mango Tree has been driven by several central principles. One of the most important aspects of The Mango Tree is the all-encompassing psychosocial support for the orphans throughout the entire project. The Mango Tree is the only such agency operating in the 120 rural communities where they work. 

With humble beginnings, they set up a charity and began fund raising to initially support just over 1000 young orphans by providing them with school uniforms (a pre-requisite to attend school), books, shoes and porridge. 

But Willie had bigger plans!

By 2006 TMT was supporting 5000 orphans with 750 of them going from primary to secondary school. The Mango Tree was trying at every stage to empower the people it helped. It was never just a hand-to-mouth existence they were providing. They changed the way the villages looked after the children. They set up mentoring classes that allowed the older TMT orphans to teach their younger siblings and relatives. 

The Mango Tree set up education campaigns regarding sanitation and the use of clean water. After expanding into Kenya in 2007 and reaching 7500 orphans the charity started looking for ways to become sustainable.

Call it serendipity but in 2009 they won an unsolicited one million dollars from the Google foundation and that proved to be the catalyst in them building the Kyela Polytechnic College in Tanzania and a secondary school for girls in Kenya.

By 2011 the Polytechnic opened its doors and started offering courses that lead to professional qualifications. The Mango Tree Alumni association is formed by 126 former students. These are TMT orphans that have found good jobs having finished tertiary education. They are now fund raising to support more orphans in their communities.

What is the magic? The TMT offers pastoral care and mentorship than enables these children to flourish and to make something of themselves. All beneficiaries of the programme have to spend between one and two years doing voluntary work for the Mango Tree. This often takes the form of mentorship in households where TMT orphans live and study. They have started a programme where widowed women in the village (who would otherwise be marginalised) are able to take in 5 to 6 orphans and a mentor. The mentor is a graduate volunteer.

Immediately the dynamic changes! 

The widow has company and the volunteer is able to help around the homestead. The children have someone to look up to – a senior TMT graduate and the graduate gets a sense of purpose and achievement.

So strong is this formula that entire communities have been taken out of poverty 

20,000 children and young people have access to education and training

74% of graduates are in full-time employment

2,700 orphans have graduated from further education

Currently the Polytechnic College is also offering vocational courses for other orphans that have not been beneficiaries of the programme when they were younger.

One quarter of staff at the Polytechnic are TMT alumni.

By supporting The Mango Tree you will enable a highly successful and efficient charity, one that has had an enormous impact already, to deliver a sustainable answer to a generation of young people that are willing and able but need your help to support them through their formative years. 

http://www.themangotree.org/