“Five years on and The Butterfly Tree is still going strong. A significant amount of progress has made a lasting change to the Mukuni Chiefdom with the advancement of our health and education projects. Successful fundraising has enabled the charity to build additional classrooms, teachers’ and clinic houses, bore holes and latrines. Each school now has a bore hole, providing safe clean drinking water an opportunity to grow vegetables, which provides a sustainable feeding program.

On Saturday I will be flying out to Zambia for what I am hoping will be a very rewarding trip. The three schools that we are currently building in the villages of Matengu and Silelo in the Musokatwane Chiefdom and Malima in the Mukuni Chiefdom should be completed by the end of October. A teachers’ house at Mukuni is also under construction as well as five community houses for widows and orphans. We have a number of volunteers who are helping to improve the Maths and English standards at Mukuni Basic School, others are assisting with the HIV and AIDS prevention projects and teaching business skills to groups of women. We are very grateful to all of them for giving up their time to volunteer for The Butterfly Tree.

Education for Zambia - New school for pupils at Matengu to open shortly

In addition to our on going sponsors the Barrington Educational Initiative, a Swiss based private charitable endeavour, has offered to support our work. We have also recently partnered with and Travelers Gift Vacations, a tour operator that provides luxury and purpose travel. A philanthropic traveler has a chance to get involved with charitable work in one of the developing countries they are visiting. The longer I work with the charity the more I realise there is a great need for collaboration amongst small charities operating in Zambia. If we endeavour to work with other organisations together we can make a bigger impact, create transparency and help to alleviate corruption. One of our new partners is Global Partners for Health, a US based charity also working in Zambia, who aim to provide vital medical supplies for our clinics.

Health education – young women from Kamwi Village gives birth to seventh child

Tomorrow our own cycling team, The Flying Butts, will be competing in a cycle challenge at Brands Hatch. The CyclothonUK event has some thirty teams involved in the challenge to raise funds for charities. One of our volunteers, Oscar Miyanda of Basement Entertainment, is providing the music to spur the teams on. So far we have raised almost £2000 all of which will go towards our orphan programmes in Zambia. We wish Mike Kaye, Nigel Birch, Jake Wilson-Gunn and James Blackburn every success and thank them for giving up their valuable time to take part. If you would like to sponsor the team this can be done either on our website or through Just Giving, no deductions will be made.

With less than two weeks to go our charity team ‘The Flying Butts’ are busy training for Cyclothon UK, being held at Brands Hatch on 15th September. Mike Kaye, Nigel Birch, Jake Wilson-Gunn and James Blackburn will be competing against thirty teams comprising of international rugby players and the British para-cycling who are to compete in the 2012 Olympics. The event starts at 7am, is open to the public and should reach fever pitch late afternoon, ending at 7pm. The team are generously giving up their time to raise funds for The Butterfly Tree health and education projects in Mukuni and beyond.

Cyclothon UK  – raising vital funds for these Zambian children

These fundraising events help to boost vital funds to support our work in Zambia. All our work revolves around the many orphans who have lost their parents as a result of  HIV/AIDS.  710,000 children are left orphaned and desperately need our help to provide them with an education and improved health and water facilities. Our orphan sponsorship programme gives these children the opportunity to complete their education giving them better future prospects. To date we have sponsored over 400 individual orphans and helped several thousand more at the many schools we support in the Mukuni Chiefdom of Zambia.

Evelyn Makaya , Mukuni High School on our orphan sponsorship programme

We are very grateful to our main sponsors: CRB Solutions, Geddes Associates, Adacemy Leasing and Serenity Finance. If you would like to sponsor The Butterfly Tree team this can be done by donating through Just Giving or on our secure charity donation page. No fees or administration costs will be deducted, all funds raised will go directly into our grassroots projects. If you would prefer to sponsor an orphan please use this link and complete the form. Your support can make a lasting change to a child’s life.