Tadworth and Walton Overseas Aid Trust are a small charity active in three villages in Surrey (Tadworth, Walton and Kingswood) that provides support to a number of overseas aid projects that have some direct connection to this locality. Typically this might mean that someone, who has friends or relatives in Tadworth and is now working in the developing world, identifies opportunities for us to fund improvements to the lives of some of the poorest people on the planet.
We raise money via donations and by organising events to give our supporters the opportunity to contribute to worthwhile projects whilst enjoying themselves. Through these events supporters can meet like-minded local people and sometimes hear directly from those who have visited or worked with our overseas projects.
We also work with local schools, churches, businesses and individuals in fund raising ventures such as BBQ’s, Concerts, Auctions and Fashion Shows.
We do not undertake project work ourselves but we support others who do. We have helped raise and deploy over £400,000 since our foundation in 1982.
One of the key benefits of being a small local charity is that every pound donated to us goes directly to a project in the developing world with no money diverted to pay for UK administration.
We typically identify projects through direct contact via some local resident. We currently support a school in Nepal of which we became aware during a trip to Nepal in 2010 by a TWOAT committee member. We maintain contact with the school via email so we are aware of their issues and needs. Sadly the school was heavily damaged in the Nepal earthquake so we helped them and the 50% of villagers, whose homes were also damaged, by funding tents for temporary accommodation. The villagers’ initial priority was repairing homes but work on rebuilding the school was completed in August 2016 using over £10k raised through appeals in this and other publications. The £10k covered all the building material costs with the villagers providing the labour.
We find that relatively small sums of money can make a huge difference. You can see details of all the projects we currently support in the ‘Projects’ page. Most of our projects are in Africa but we also support some in Asia, South America and Eastern Europe.
Many TWOAT projects are concerned with children and healthcare. We have recently assisted the only school for deaf children in The Gambia with the cost of repairing the engine of the vital school bus which fetches vulnerable deaf children from a wide catchment area. Where appropriate we also send items directly from the UK. For the Gambian school this included second-hand hearing aids with associated kits to fabricate new ear pieces supplied to us by a Surrey company.
Jamie Coutts used to live locally, working as a green keeper, but decided to completely change his life by relocating to El Salvador to help coffee growers whose land had been devastated by a protracted civil war. Jamie showed them how to use organic rather than chemical fertilisers and is continuing this process by educating school children in organic farming with help from TWOAT funding. He has relatives in Tadworth and combines visits to them with opportunities to give us direct feedback on the various projects.
- By providing under £1000 we helped a community of some 6,000 people in Africa to gain access to clean water.
- For £750 per year we pay for about 1,000 children in Kenya to be treated for Jigger Flea infestation – a painful and life threatening parasite that enters walkers’ bare feet
- We pay the £1,300 annual salary for a village school teacher in Nepal, one of the poorest nations on earth.
The sums of money provided by TWOAT are of course tiny in comparison to the large charities, but you can be sure that any money you donate to us will go to the overseas projects that we support with no deduction for any costs of administering TWOAT and with a clear idea of how the money will be spent.
For further details please visit other parts of this website or phone chairman, Mike Fox on 01737 350452.
Tadworth and Walton Overseas Aid Trust is one of a number of similar charities in Surrey set up in the 1980s to provide targeted financial support to projects in the developing world. Here are some:
C.O.A.T
Caterham Overseas Aid Trust
SMOAT
St. Mark’s Overseas Aid Trust
OWG
One World Group Oxted
POST
Purley OverSeas Trust
Details of our own activities as well as Surrey Overseas Aid Trusts