On behalf of The Butterfly Tree I am delighted to present our Annual Report and Accounts for 2023-24. Please click on the link below to view or download the full report, the accounts, images and graphs.
Chairman’s Report
I am delighted to present to you The Butterfly Tree’s 2023-2024 Annual Report and Accounts. This has been the second most successful year since the founding of the charity in 2006. More schools have been developed. Both Riverview and Musokotwane Secondary schools are undergoing expansion after members of The Murphy Family Foundation joined me in Zambia to see firsthand how we are spending their donations. Both schools received funding to build additional 1×3 classroom blocks and to supply computers for their sciences labs. A new secondary school in Nguba is being built, this will be the fifth of its kind implemented by the charity. A 1×2 classroom block was completed for Katubya Community school in Musokotwane to replace the mud and pole construction. Bbombe Lyangoma, another community school, is to receive a 1×2 classroom block, toilets and a teacher’s house. Once we have completed the infrastructure for schools, we hand them over to the Ministry of Education who provide trained teachers and the ongoing costs.
The orphan sponsorship progamme funds the educational needs of orphans and vulnerable children, many live in extreme poverty and being looked after by their elderly grandparents. Though the government recently abolished school fees these are only a fraction of the costs. Money is needed to buy school uniforms, shoes, bags, books and for exams, and other school expenses. This programme has helped to transform the lives of thousands of young people. In addition, we are currently sponsoring ten students at universities and colleges. Seven former sponsored pupils after undergoing extensive training have been enrolled into the army, one as a junior officer.
We continue to support children with special needs, three units built by The Butterfly Tree received donations for materials and equipment. A young amputee, under our sponsorship programme, won three awards at Riverview’s prize-giving ceremony, passed grade her grade nine exams, and was offered a place at Kazungula Boarding school. We initiated a worthwhile project entitled ‘Empowering Young People with Physical and Mental Health Challenges.’ This comprises of chicken rearing in Mukuni, and goat rearing in Kamwi and Ngandu to provide a sustainable income-generating enterprise for these vulnerable young people.
A new health post was developed in Mabwa, a remote area of Nyawa. This included the construction of a clinic, two staff houses, toilets, a biodigester for waste, and a borehole. The facility was fully equipped, and solar power was installed. As this area has a high prevalence of malaria, we donated mosquito nets to the schools in the vicinity and also to Kauwe zone. Our ‘mosquito nets for schools’ project is proving to be highly effective in reducing the number of malaria cases.
In March this year the President declared a state of Disaster and Emergency as a result of a severe drought predominantly caused by El Niño. The poor rainy season and extreme heat caused crops to perish and vegetable gardens to wilt. Most of the income in rural villages is generated from subsistence farming, which also provides food for households. The water situation is dire, I have never seen the Zambezi River so low in April. This is the time of year when an abundance of water cascades over the mighty Victoria Falls. Knowing that no rain was expected until October it painted a concerning picture. To provide help to schools and communities that rely on streams and rivers for drinking water The Butterfly Tree drilled eight boreholes. It is imperative that we install more, without water no life can survive. Thanks to receiving four substantial donations twelve more drills are scheduled for the coming months.
The drought has obviously had an impact on the women’s food security projects, and we are doing everything we can to support them. We are including these women in our distributions of ground maize which we provide for those most in need, especially orphans and the elderly who have no source of income. We have implemented four more sustainable food security projects at Siambalele, Musokotwane, Mukuni and Senkobo to assist with the food shortages and to provide income generation. All have solar-powered water reticulation systems.
I am so impressed with our trained peer educators and participated in one of their workshops in Kauwe. The zone recorded a high number of teenage pregnancies in 2023. The peer educators who were on our orphan sponsorship and have now completed school educate pupils about the dangers of HIV, teenage pregnancies, early marriages and drug and alcohol abuse. The workshops allow pupils to be open and talk about their problems. One school reported a reduction of teenage pregnancies from seven in 2022 to only one in 2023.
Sport keeps young people occupied and prevents them getting into of trouble. We sponsored football tournaments and provided kits for school teams. Two of our Zambian trustees were hosted by the organisers of the Blackpool Cup, an annual event for European school football teams. Martin and Mupotola travelled from Zambia to Blackpool and had a wonderful time watching the school matches and going to Liverpool’s stadium, as well as being taken to a premier league match and site seeing around the area.
We were honoured to receive two further awards during the 2023-24 period. We were chosen as the International Support Organisation of the Year for the 2024 Innovation and Excellence Global Awards. In addition, The Butterfly Tree was the winner of the Youth Education Nonprofit Organisation of the Year for London and the South-East of England. These awards give our work in Zambia more exposure, help to create awareness and give a boost to our teams in the UK and Zambia.
Its hard to believe that The Butterfly Tree has been operating since 2006. Though we work only in the Southern Province of Zambia we are making a substantial impact, and we are the biggest contributors to education in the Kazungula District. It covers an area of 16,835 km² and is the largest district in the province. Compared to other Provinces the south was neglected. Most of the projects we support are in remote areas that get very little aid from anywhere else. We also have several projects in the rural areas of the Livingstone Districts. Our aim is continue developing more education and health facilities and to provide clean water and food security for orphans and vulnerable people.
Last year The Butterfly Tree registered as a Charity Incorporated Organisation – the benefits of being a corporate body is that we need only to comply with one set of laws, charity law, and only one regulator, the Charity Commission. Therefore in 2025 we will be changing everything over to the CIO. Nothing will change, except for the bank account as the bank states that a new account must be opened. For those who donate monthly, we will give you advanced warning.
As always, I am grateful to my fellow trustees Ann, Jackie, and Victoria who joined the Butterfly Tree earlier this year, for their invaluable help with accounting, safeguarding and fundraising. Anthony resigned as a trustee in February due to other commitments but will remain an avid supporter of the charity. Many thanks also to volunteers David, Carolyn, Valerie and Steven for giving up their free time to help with IT, fundraising and youth projects, and to Frank Maiolo, our US representative. Our Trustees in Zambia are the ones who implement, manage and monitor all our projects on the ground. Mupotola Siloka (secretary), Rev. Presley Mulenga (education), Martin Mushabati (project management/sport) and Stain Musungaila (malaria prevention and community projects). Each of them has volunteered for the charity prior to and since the registration of the NGO in 2007. Also, thanks to our Zambian volunteers who manage a variety of programmes. Natasha Mufeya, (orphan sponsorship/peer education/girls’ empowerment), Mafian Sitali (orphan sponsorship) and Lloyd Kasela (community projects, Nyawa). All our members both in the UK and Zambia are volunteers and are committed to helping young people to change their lives for the better.
Jane Kaye-Bailey
Founder
