Happy New Year to everyone of our donors, supporters and volunteers! Please accept our apologies for the delay in sending the 2015 calendars, which are still available to purchase at a cost of £4 each plus postage. A special thanks to all the companies who sponsored a page of the calendar, this money covers all printing costs, with the balance providing funds for our projects.
2015 is a significant year for the United Nations, governments and the charitable sector, as it is 15 years since a target was set in September 2000 to reduce global poverty and its related issues.
‘At the Millennium Summit in September 2000 the largest gathering of world leaders in history adopted the UN Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets, with a deadline of 2015, that have become known as the Millennium Development Goals’.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the world’s time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions-income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion-while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability. They are also basic human rights-the rights of each person on the planet to health, education, shelter, and security’.
Poverty in rural Zambia
Since 2006 The Butterfly Tree has been working to help Zambia meet its targets. This year we hope to advance our support in all areas, most especially in education and malaria prevention. Our Christmas matched funding campaign, with a target of £8,000, proved to be hugely successful. The money we raised is being used to sponsor orphans, to buy books and uniforms for the start of the new school year and to support our new malaria prevention programme.
Sponsored Orphan
The matched funding will be used to purchase a much needed 4 x 4 for our team in Zambia. Mupotola Siloka, Rev. Presley Mulenga and Martin Mushabati have worked tirelessly to run our ground operations, using their own vehicles to visit rural schools and clinics, but only a 4×4 can access some of the more remote communities. I have driven to most of the outreach areas and know how treacherous the tracks can be.
Jane driving through a bush fire
The following projects are planned for 2015: a new classroom block is currently under construction at Ndele Primary School thanks to a grant from the British and Foreign School Society, substantial advancement of N’gandu Primary School, funding by JOAC Community Works Projects. Gill St. Bernard’s School in Gladstone, New Jersey has kindly raised funds to support Kasiya Community School. In addition we aim to considerably expand our malaria prevention programme, managed by volunteer Stain Musungaila and to more provide schools with safe drinking water.
In our small, but significant way, we are helping Zambia to meet its Millennium Development Goals.
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