2020/2021 REPORT FROM CHAIR MIKE FOX
This year has of course yet again been dominated by the COVID pandemic which very sadly now seems to have reached some of the remoter communities which we support. It has a more devastating impact in poorer countries where governments do not have the same resources as we do to provide furlough type payments to those whose ability to earn has temporarily at least been lost. COVID has only recently reached the village, whose school we support in Nepal, but it has already inflicted the same rate of deaths that it took over 18 months to cause in the UK. As a double misfortune the income of many of their residents, which was based on tourism and trekking, collapsed some time ago when the disease first impacted the more developed world.
One bright spot for us has been the continuing amazing generosity of our own supporters. Despite not having been able to run most of our usual indoor events, your donations have kept our income at pretty well the same level that we were achieving before we had even heard of COVID.
We are particularly grateful to Michael and Diana Gannon who most generously allowed their beautiful garden at Motts Hill House to be open in aid of TWOAT. We raised over £1300 despite one sharp shower.
Keith and Elizabeth Lewis generously allowed us to sell teas on behalf of TWOAT again this year when they opened their garden as part of the National Garden Scheme.
21 x walkers participated in the first of our John Allinson Memorial Walks and, at the time of writing, a similar number are expected to participate in the second walk. The funds raised by these walks help us to continue to support St John’s School for the Deaf in The Gambia. John Allinson himself originally arranged that we would help them with the cost of a bus they use to fetch children from a wide catchment area as they are the only school in the country that caters specifically for the deaf.
We have been very grateful for the help we have received from all the Churches in Tadworth & Walton. Both St Peter’s and the Good Shepherd have designated us as one the charities that they will support and for whom they will raise funds. Both St John’s and Christchurch have been most generous in allowing us the use of their hall facilities.
Some of our supporters, achieving a significant birthday milestone, have kindly suggested to their friends and relatives that a gift to TWOAT rather than themselves would please them most. So far this year this type of generosity has raised approaching £2,000 for us. We also received donations of several hundred pounds when one of our supporters made her holiday home available for TWOAT supporter use. If you have any similar suggestion as to how we can raise money please contact me.
SPONSORED WALKS
Please visit our Donate page to donate sponsorship monies.
BIRTHDAY TREAT
When one of our committee celebrated her 90th birthday and requested donations to TWOAT instead of material gifts she raised well over £700 for us. if you have a notable birthday and do not really need any other gifts please consider suggesting a donation to TWOAT. Please contact mike.fox2@ntlworld.com to discuss how this can be done.
We had a school report from the RUSH Academy in Kenya for one of the children we sponsor there called Princess Natasha. The report told us that her favourite bible story is of the birth of Jesus. Her report stated “Princess is an active and disciplined child who loves to be in school. Her positive outlook and excellent academic performance speak of a greater promise for her future.” Princess is raised by a single unemployed mother who depends on the aid we send to support her daughter’s education.
It is great to think that the money raised as a result of a 90th birthday in the UK would be sufficient for TWOAT to provide support for a year to at least two such children as Princess.
Princess Natash aged 8 years who we sponsor to attend school in Kenya (click on the image to enlarge it)
TWOAT ZOOM Talks
We had an excellent Zoom session from Susie Farley about her experiences running Cardiac diagnosis training in Ethiopia. we hope to provide some diagnostic aids for her to take whenever she is able to visit Ethiopia again. Please contact mike.fox2@ntlworld.com if you would like a link to view this and 7 other ZOOM talks giving details of projects we support.
OPEN GARDENS
On two Sundays, the 11th July and 22nd August, we have been kindly invited by well-known local plants expert, Keith Lewis, to sell teas when his garden at 41 Shelvers Way, Tadworth, KT20 5QJ is opened as part of the National Garden Scheme from 2pm to 5.30m (admission to the garden is £5).
ANNUAL MEETING
Our Annual Social Meeting & Dinner will be held in St John’s Hall on Saturday October 16th.
In view of the serious impact of COVID on many of our projects a very generous TWOAT supporter offered to match fund any donations we received during the last 10 days of April. We publicised this to our supporters and as a result received over £1500 of donations, these were then doubled to make over £3,000 – a fantastic result for us. Using these funds at our committee meeting in early May we were able to agree an increase of at least 10% in our normal annual donations to any project impacted by COVID. During that meeting we authorised over £10,000 to be transferred to projects including sufficient money for the Myanmar Refugee School, we support on the Thai border, to start serving 4 x school lunches per week instead of the current 3.
Click to see children enjoying a TWOAT lunch
We also sent an additional £350 to the village school we support in Nepal so that families suffering hardship due to the loss of income caused by COVID can be supported and an additional £500 to Ludhiana Hospital in India where we support their Samaritans’ Fund which pays the cost of hospital treatment for those too poor to meet the bills themselves.
Finally I am delighted to tell you that very generous TWOAT Supporters have offered the use of the 2-bedroom flat they own in the Parkstone area of Poole again this year. The flat is available for periods of 5 days to a week to be agreed between now and August. The normal minimum donation to TWOAT would be £250 plus £150 to offset the costs incurred by the flat owners. Please contact me if you are interested.
For Little Sapphires article from Kingswood Village Voice click here TWOAT v3
Our FORTNIGHTLY Auction will resume in a few weeks.
We have launched a new fundraising initiative to try to start replacing the funds that might have been raised by the events that we have had to cancel or postpone. For the next several weeks we plan to auction some item or service that has been kindly donated to us by one of our supporters or generously provided by a local business.
Previous donors: The New Kyber Kingswood ; Silver Lantern Tea, Tadworth ; Dine with George meal delivery service ; Kingswood & Tadworth Osteopathic Clinic; Chapman & Son Butchers in Tadworth; Kingswood Tadworth & Walton Horticultural Society
For our summary accounts view here
TWOAT 2020 Accounts Extract
We have recently heard from The Little Sapphires School, whose creation initially as a nursery school we helped to fund in 2011, concerning progress of some the the children who attended then. Bob Gunn, who is our committee contact for the school wrote an article telling these stories for the “Kingswood Village Voice” magazine which is reproduced with their permission here.
TWOAT v3
PLEASE CONTINUE TO DONATE
We did achieve our £1,000 target for the appeal immediately below for which many thanks. That money has already been transferred to Madagascar but projects, particularly schools and orphanages, continue to tell us about increased costs they are facing due to COVID so please visit our donation’s page here.
£1,000 Appeal
TWOAT recently launched an appeal to raise funds to support The Little Sapphires School. It is run by the Mothers’ Union in Madagascar and has about 55 nursery and primary age children. Unfortunately due to the virus and other local issues many of the parents can no longer earn enough to contribute the £3.65 per month that they were previously paying towards the school’s running costs. TWOAT is already donating £2,300 per year to support the school and we could not add to that from our available funds as there are other projects also needing our help. Our aim is to raise an additional £1,000 to cover the shortfall in contributions and at the time of writing we still have a few hundred pounds to go. The school sent us some details supplied by one of the pupils called Dallilah – she is 9 years old and has two sisters but only she can currently attend the school. This is an extract from what she said:
