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.
What did Adam do for us?
Posted 15 May 2012
By Tracey Morris, Bristol refurbishing group
This year’s Bodgers’ Ball at Hawkchurch on the Devon–Dorset border came with sunshine and celebrity endorsement.
Technology enthusiast, scientist, writer and broadcaster of such programmes as What the Romans did for us, Adam Hart-Davis attended the Ball in another of his many guises, that of amateur bodger. A real gentleman, as genuinely delightful in real life as he is on TV, Mr Hart-Davis was happy to add his stamp of approval to Tool for Self Reliance’s work in Africa, as he bought a supply of woodworking tools from our stall.
We had a great weekend, raising over £2,000 split equally between Tools for Self Reliance and the Bristol group, where it will be added to funds for our next project. This is almost double last year’s total and a record for this event!
L to R: Bob, Shelley, Adam Hart-Davis and Tracey
Putting the future in their hands
2011 – another year to be proud of
In 2011 we gave hundreds of people in Africa the practical help they need to work their way out of poverty and head toward a better life, including many of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in African society. The benefits reached much further, with colleagues and their families and whole communities benefiting too.
How did we do this? We sent tools that would have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds if bought new in the UK. And we helped our partners deliver vital training – training that multiplied the benefits of the tools many times over, and gave people new skills and qualifications.
In our 2011 Annual Review you can read about:
- the impact our work has had on the lives of ordinary people
- how we spent your money
- how we listen to the needs of our partners in Africa
- how people all over the UK are motivated to help
- how you can get involved, right here, right now
You will find a full breakdown of our income and expenditure in our Annual Report 2011.
Click here to view our Annual Review & Annual Report archive.
Open Day
This year’s Open Day on Saturday 30 June promises to be one of the biggest and best yet. As well as offering you an opportunity to have a good look round and find out all about Tools for Self Reliance and what we do, we hope to give you and your family a great day out.
Entertainment includes live music, Michael O’Leary (storyteller), archery, motorbikes, children’s games and competitions, and dance workshop, together with demonstrations of traditional country crafts. Oh, and did we mention the tea and cakes?
Entry and car parking are free. Starts 11 am and continues til 4 pm. For directions scroll to bottom of page. We hope to see you there!
Some photos from previous years
This is where you’ll find us.
Postcode SO40 7GY
Lat 50º 54’ 59’’
Long -1º 31’ 49’’
Looking ahead to next 5 years
Our new Organisational Strategy is called Changing lives to build a better future. This sets out our vision, mission, values and key objectives for the next five years. It is the result of extensive consultations with partners, supporters, trustees, staff and other stakeholders.
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.
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
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
Tons of tools for Tanzania
Posted on 5 April 2012
Our latest container of tools left Netley Marsh on 29 March bound for artisans’ workshops in Tanzania.
Thanks to volunteers in Bristol, Castle Cary, Netley Marsh (day and evening groups), Holt, Sheffield, Clun, Bristol, Northampton, Ringwood, Nottingham, Exeter Men in Sheds, Wakefield, Southwell, Milton Keynes, Baildon, Llanelli, Edinburgh, Sutton, Middlesbrough, Bakewell, Weston-Super-Mare and Swindon for helping to make this happen.
Some of the toolkits being loaded
Mixing it up in Scotland
The Kinghorn Ecology Centre’s tool refubishers are arousing lots of interest and for all the right reasons. Among their proponents are MSP David Torrance, who said “This is a fantastic project which really benefits the local community.” Enterprise Officer Julie Wesencraft described the tool workshops as “inspirational”.
Centre manager Jo Hobbett said, “We have two or three young men on placements plus a core of seven other volunteers. The intergenerational mix works well and the young volunteers really do learn from the older ones.”
Tool refurbishing started at Kinghorn in March 2011. Refubishers meet every Monday afternoon, even in the depths of winter, which shows considerable commitment considering they operate out of a drafty old barn.
This is a fantastic project which really benefits the local community.MSP David Torrance
The group has begun refurbishing tools, not kits, to get its hand in. According to Jo, “We are at the stage now of having to spend more time sorting out tools before the weekly workshops so we can be a bit more organised. We are very keen to try and complete a full kit for Tools for Self Reliance soon.”
The team also refurbishes tools for destinations nearer to home. This includes gardening tools for tending a vegetable plot at the centre, managed by a local befriending group.
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
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.”
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.
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.