News Items
This page shows all our current news items in full, so you may want to add it to your favourites to keep up to date with Tools for Self Reliance’s activites.
To view all our past news items, please use the news archives.
Sheffield artist retrospective
Amateur printmaker Paul Warrender, who died at the end of 2010 aged 63, has a retrospective exhibition at The Circle Gallery in Sheffield.
Paul’s wife, Jude, says,
Paul was a quantity surveyor by day, but art was one of his passions and he developed his skills all his life. In the ‘70s and ‘80s he produced many graphics on a voluntary basis for local community groups, but he took printmaking very seriously. I hope people in Sheffield will enjoy this show.
The exhibition is being curated by Sheffield’s Cupola Gallery. Karen Sherwood, Managing Director of Cupola, says,
We are delighted to support this exhibition. Paul was clearly a talented and sensitive artist, and the themes in his work are by turns enigmatic, thought provoking, funny and full of insight.
Often working in black and white, Paul creates strong, bold images through his confident command of graphic styles and techniques. We believe this will be of interest to other printmakers as well as the general public. His work is delightful and very accessible.
The Gallery is open at The Circle, Sheffield S1 4FW, Monday to Friday, 9.00 am – 5.30 pm until 12 February 2012. Some prints are for sale via The Cupola Gallery, along with an accompanying book profiling a broader range of Paul’s work.
Proceeds from sales of prints and postcards will be donated to Tools for Self Reliance.
What got a village dancing?
Posted on 20 December 2011
Tools for Self Reliance’s Sarah Ingleby and Jon Dunkley have just returned from a successful partner visit to Sierra Leone where, according to Jon, “The atmosphere is very positive and people are looking to the future, trying to rebuild their lives and trying to do better.”
One of our partners the Council of Churches Sierra Leone in Moyamba received a leg vice which was given an enthusiastic welcome: “When they got that [leg vice] the village danced for two days!” I P Bangura
Carpentry workshop, CCSL, during a visit in 2010
Ten reasons to feel good
Posted 6 December 2011
Stuck for a New Year resolution? Don’t worry – help is at hand! The British 10K London Run on 8 July is the perfect curtain raiser to the 2012 Olympics, and you could be there by taking part in Team Tools for Self Reliance. It’s not just about the running of course. We’d also like you to raise as much money as possible to help pay for tools and training to give unemployed youngsters in Africa a fresh start.
We can assist with publicity but it will be down to you to raise your sponsorship money. Set up a fundraising page on JustGiving, ask your friends and family to sponsor you, or contact your local press, university or college newspaper. It will be a gold star for your CV and a great excuse to get fit!
If you’d like to know more, email us at jo@tfsr.org or call Jo on 023 8086 9697.
How nimble fingered are you?
Posted on 6 December 2011
If you’ve recently joined the growing band of make-it-yourselfers, or have been sewing for years already, why not use your skills to help others by becoming a Tools for Self Reliance volunteer? We’re looking for people to share ideas and designs, help increase our productivity and raise funds. You can also help to sell at fêtes and fairs, and tell customers about Tools for Self Reliance’s work in Africa.
We’re setting up new craft groups around the UK, but if you’re in one already why not tell them about us? You could organise a fundraising sale for us. If you enjoy sewing and crafting on your own, why not do a sale yourself or send us your designs and products.
Call us on 023 8086 9697 or email us to ask questions or discuss how we can work together. Every penny raised helps marginalised people in Africa to achieve lifelong employment skills.
Volunteer fundraisers wanted
Posted 6 December 2011
Do you have imagination and initiative? Are you looking to boost your CV? We are looking for volunteer fundraisers to work full or part time.
In particular we need help with:
- individual fundraising
- working with churches and community groups to increase their involvement with Tools for Self Reliance
- organising community fundraising events.
We are a small, friendly, NGO helping African artisans. We have a volunteer network in the UK refurbishing tools and sewing machines for the development projects of our partners in six African countries.
You will gain valuable experience and learn new skills while helping some of the poorest people in Africa.
We are located in a semi-rural area on the edge of the New Forest, close to Southampton.
If this sounds like you apply by writing to Jan Kidd at Tools for Self Reliance, Netley Marsh, Southampton SO40 7GY, email us or call 023 8086 9697.
Fast forward for tailors
Go Go Forward is one of several new businesses to emerge from a training project between Zambian partner Mtendere Churches Response Alliance and Tools for Self Reliance. The three women behind it are Eness Tembo, Mary Mbewe and Jessy Banda, who speaks for the group.
Eness and I were both unemployed and living at home, and Mary was scraping by selling vegetables at the local market. Then an opportunity came along that changed our lives.
We enrolled on a tailoring course in our local church, where we learnt how to make different types of clothes including skirts and school uniforms. We learnt how to repair and alter clothes and how to do batik and tie-dye, and we enjoyed everything they threw at us.
We were given sewing machines to help start up our tailoring business and we’re so grateful for these. The training was really important too – we learnt how to use the machines properly and manage our business.
The training has made a big difference. We can send our children to school because we can make the uniforms they need. We’ve built a temporary workshop outside one of our houses. Next year we plan to have a proper workshop, buy more machines and take on more people. Tools for Self Reliance helped us, so we want to help others.
Eness with her sewing machine
Oxfordshire village’s year of fun
Posted 28 November 2011
A village community near Oxford has presented Jan Kidd our CEO with a cheque for £13,000. This brings the total raised by Kennington Overseas Aid to a staggering £26,000, the culmination of a marathon fundraising effort over the last nine months.
Events included story telling, a house to house collection, a fun run, open gardens, village fête and musical concerts.
The money will be used to improve people’s livelihoods in village communities in Ghana with our partner TRAX.
The fun run was just one of many events organised by KOA this year
In the Archbishop’s sights
Posted 28 September 2011
We received another welcome endorsement of our work recently from the Archbishop of York and Tools for Self Reliance patron Dr John Sentamu when he made us his charity of the week.
Carpenters co-op expands
It’s great when we get news of artisans who Tools for Self Reliance supported in the past. So we were delighted to hear from the Buguruni Carpenters Cooperative. Buguruni received a furniture making kit and business skills training via our partner SIDO Dar es Salaam back in 2009.
Business owner Saidi Ali Jongo told us,
Our new youth training school is almost ready to open. Business is booming and we are now exporting to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia. We have 60 members – 40 trained and 20 trainees. We hope to take on more trainees when our school opens.
The tools we received are still working well. The planes will probably last another 30 years. We have used the money we’ve saved to buy a router and planer, and we are in the process of purchasing a bandsaw. We have also taken the first steps to improving our workshop which will include a furniture showroom.
We’re grateful to everyone who supports us with their time, money and tools so we can continue to help people like Saidi to build a better life.
Tanzania 1000 - Join our club!
The highest form of charity is to find someone a job.
Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
More than 30 years ago Tools for Self Reliance started life as Tools for Tanzania. Since then we have supplied thousands of men and women with tools and training to help them become blacksmiths, tailors, carpenters, shoe repairers and builders – and we’ve helped them develop their skills into viable small businesses. Today they are working hard and building their communities.
Tools and training transform lives!
Caroline Ngoty’s story
Caroline runs the Tumaini Tailoring Group in the Manyara region of Tanzania. In 2010 she took part in a 15 day training programme. She learnt how to repair and maintain sewing machines and how to manage the business. At the end of the training Caroline returned to the other 7 members of her group to pass on her new skills. The group also received 1 electric and 2 hand sewing machines.
When we visited, Caroline said the group is now working flat out. With the new machines their products are better quality and this is attracting new customers.
Now our group is earning enough to pay school fees and we have improved our diets. You should continue with projects like this – if you educate a woman you educate the whole community. Having seen how other people have volunteered their time and support makes me want to do the same. I will now look for opportunities to train others.
How you can help
Helping people like Caroline takes more than tools and goodwill, it costs money too. Money to send the tools and pay for the training. That’s where I’d like to ask for your help.
Tanzania is a huge country and there is still work to do. Each year we want to support 240 people living in six regions of Tanzania with vocational training, business skills, and start-up tool kits. These 240 people will train other group members, and help their families. In all we will be touching the lives of 7,200 people. And what does all this cost? Just £60,000 will pay for the vocational and business training, and pay for two containers with 240 tool kits (averaging £800 each if bought new) plus the costs of collecting and refurbishing those tools. It works out at about £250 to train and equip an artisan group. Not much to change lives!
Our Tanzania 1000 Club is made up of 1,000 people who have each committed to give at least £5 a month by standing order. Just £5 to help change a life! In return you will hear from us how your donations are helping other people like Caroline Ngoty.
Joining Tanzania 1000 couldn’t be simpler. Just follow these two simple steps.
- 1. Click on the link below and make your monthly donation.
- 2. Type ‘Tanzania 1000 Club’ in the message box after you have set up your donation.
I will make sure your money is well spent – I’m one of the 1,000!
Thank you!
CEO for Tools for Self Reliance
Need help with your fundraising?
Posted 3 January 2012
Hundreds of our volunteers get involved in fundraising activities each year. And now more than ever we need you to join in. If you would like to do some fundraising for us but would like some help to get started here are a couple of places you could look for some free advice.
We have our own fundraising pack with lots of ideas to get your imagination going. There is also a dedicated Institute of Fundraising website where you can find lots more help and links to other resources. Just click on the How2Fundaise logo below.
Museum partnership ‘innovative’
Posted 23 December 2011
A project to help museums in Scotland get their collections in better shape is having a positive impact further afield. Under the Old Tools New Uses project, a partnership between the industrial collections arm of the National Museums Scotland and Tools for Self Reliance, museums have been busy rooting out duplicate industrial and domestic tools in their collections and handing them to Tools for Self Reliance.
The tools are already making a difference to artisans and their families in Africa. One of them, a leg vice, was on our last consignment of tools to Sierra Leone.
The project also shows what can be achieved through partnership working in the UK. As well as making a difference to the musuem service in Scotland it is helping to drive home the recycling message in schools, with the creation of new teaching resources.
“I like this project so much because it is outward looking. It puts a group of collections in the context of the world around us and then acts accordingly to make those collections understood, sustainable and useful.”Sally Colvin, Museum Association
New toolkit unveiled
Posted on 19 December 2011
The latest toolkit to roll off our production line is a sewing machine maintenance kit, making it easier to keep the hundreds of sewing machines we send to Africa each year in tip top condition. As well as being our newest toolkit the sewing machine maintenance kit is also our smallest yet.
It was the brainchild of volunteer refurbisher and former teacher at Sparsholt College Alan Busher (61) from Romsey.
The new kit features some unusual items among its 20 or so tools, including a bespoke feeler gauge and a toothbrush for cleaning all the small moving and hard to get at parts. According to Alan, hard or medium toothbrushes work best!
The team has also come up with an ingenious way of boxing up the tools which reuses the drawers from treadle sewing machines. Alan said, “This is a good use of damaged treadle sewing machine bases which are beyond economic repair and would otherwise be thrown away.”
L to R: Operations manager Jon Dunkley and volunteer Alan Busher holding aloft some of the tools in the new kit
This Christmas you can help. A donation of £20 pays for two fully restored sewing machines for a small workshop in Africa. For this and other good gift ideas check out our online shop.
Hamis is a happier man
Hamis Chamilunda is employed by the Mambo Leo Furniture group in Morogoro, Tanzania. He took a course in carpentry and business development with the Small Industries Development Organisation (SIDO), a partner of Tools for Self Reliance.
I learnt about business planning, pricing, record keeping and marketing. I enjoyed the training and I have shared what I learnt with the other members of my group, but there’s a lot more I still want to learn.
“Charging a realistic amount for our furniture and keeping good records have been the two biggest changes we have made. We now charge according to what we spend and we are able to put money back into the business to make it more effective.
“The new tools have been a great help – they are of much higher quality than our old ones. We’re far busier than we were and we can charge higher prices because we’re making better furniture.
“I have enough money to send my children to school and buy my family good clothes and food. We no longer worry about where the next meal is coming from. Thank you to the people who donated their tools to Tools for Self Reliance and thank you to the volunteers who refurbished them.”