Dear Supporters,
Welcome to our Spring newsletter.
As many of you are aware we are about to embark on The Mango Tree UK’s final year of active investment in fundraising in the UK. This exciting year of fundraising activity kicks off next month with the launch of our Miles for Mango virtual Africa challenge, (find out more below), that we hope you will feel able to either join in, or donate online or offline during April.
In August The Mango Tree Kenya will be hosting a long-awaited graduation for over 100 of our sponsored students, as well as celebrating TMT’s 20th Anniversary in Africa, and marking the official opening of TMT Kenya’s primary school that recently opened. At this event, TMT UK will also officially handover the baton to TMT Kenya, who will carry on the legacy of TMT’s education and sustainable development. We will communicate more about this, and how you can continue to support TMT Kenya’s work, in the coming months.
We are also in the process of producing a documentary film featuring The Mango Tree Kenya, which we look forward to launching later this year, and are delighted to announce that we recently found out that we were successful with an application for a Radio 4 Appeal. This national appeal will be our final fundraising event before the UK office closes in March 2025, and it will be broadcast in December 2024.
We hope you enjoy reading some of the news from our partners, and as always, thank you for your kindness and generosity,
Emily Wilder
UK Director of Operations
Miles for Mango
This April, we will embark on an epic virtual challenge. During these 30 days, participants can run, walk, cycle, swim, skate or hop (or any other activity) around Africa to collectively travel 30,000km and raise £30,000 towards educating children and young people in Kenya and Tanzania!
The Miles for Mango challenge is seeking to raise funds for school fees for our Learning and Skills for Life programme. This programme is focused on breaking down barriers that prevent disadvantaged children and young people from accessing, completing and fully engaging in their education and training. This has the impact of improving future employment prospects and helping people lift themselves out of poverty.
You can read more about the aim of the Miles for Mango challenge and how tuition fees help vulnerable children fulfil their right to education.
There are three ways to support the Miles for Mango challenge:
- As a participant and adding the distance of your sporting activities to our target
- As a donor and encouraging participants to go the extra mile
- As a supporter and sharing the challenge with others to participate or donate
If you’re feeling fit and would like to participate, you can read our blog on how to sign up to participate, which includes registering through Enthuse and customising your personal fundraising profile (in much the same way JustGiving). After that, we also have some guidelines on how to add your activity manually or by connecting your Strava account.
To donate, simply head over our Miles for Mango event page and click “Donate” in the About section.
To support our challenge, please share our Miles for Mango event page, where people can register to take part or donate, or our Miles for Mango blog to find out more about why we’re fundraising for tuition fees.
If you would like to take part and fundraise, we have a Fundraising for Miles for Mango blog with some ideas to get you started.
Whichever way you support our Miles for Mango virtual challenge, we really appreciate everything you do to help us reach the finish line in our final year of UK fundraising, as we can handover the baton to our African partners.
New Year, new students!
The Mango Tree Girls’ School continues to uphold its commitment to providing quality education and holistic development for all their students. In the current academic year, the school welcomed 61 new students; 50 of them were new learners starting in year one, while 11 learners were new admissions entering years two to year four.
Mango Tree Girls – stars of the show!
The Mango Tree Girls School drama club took part in the zonal drama festivals and achieved remarkable success. The students delivered captivating performances that earned the school recognition and praise. Their dedication, teamwork, and artistic talents showcased the school’s commitment to holistic education, nurturing artistic talent and creativity as well as academic success.
The Mango Tree Primary and Junior Secondary school
The Mango Tree Primary and Junior Secondary school is the youngest project initiated by the Mango Tree Orphan Support Trust Kenya, providing education and play for early years. The school is located in the Mawego area that has a surging population that is underserved with quality education. The Mawego Polytechnic College has also grown into a National Polytechnic, encouraging people to move to the area from other regions. This broader population often do not speak the local dialect and seek appropriate education provision for their children. The Mango Tree Primary school acts as a centre of excellence where teaching takes place in English, meaning that students enter at the same level, and no one is left behind.
The Mango Tree Primary and Junior Secondary School currently has 166 registered learners ranging from Early Childhood Education to Junior Secondary School, and boasts a highly qualified and motivated team of teachers. The teacher-student ratio allows the learners to have a more direct contact with the teacher and learners gain a lot from this interaction.
TDSF gets prepared to open their Farajika Cafe
Over the past few weeks, the Tanzania Deaf Skills Forum team has been working hard getting their cafe ready to open. They have been painting floors, fitting furniture and testing out their new kitchen appliances. This week they recruited a Chef and had a trial cafe day where the deaf catering student interns could have a go preparing and serving food to friends and family. They hope to have the cafe fully operational by the summer.
New funding partnership with ALMT!
The Mango Tree UK is delighted to announce that we recently received a generous donation from the Angus Lawson Memorial Trust (ALMT) in support of our Learning and Skills for Life Project in Kenya. This grant will be used to ensure that 292 orphaned and disadvantaged children and young people who we sponsor in education are able to study and thrive in government secondary schools. ALMT will also be funding TMT to support a number of disabled children from poor households who live in Homabay, to receive corrective surgery for physical impairments such as Clubfoot, bowlegs or correctable visual impairments. A big thank you to ALMT from the Mango Tree team!
Radio 4 Appeal application success!
The Mango Tree has just heard the wonderful news that we have been successful with our Radio 4 appeal application! Our appeal will be broadcast on December 29th, 2024. Nearer the time we will let you know more information about what it will feature and who will broadcast our appeal, but for now, if anyone has any useful celebrity contacts who you think may be good to contact, do get in touch.