An easy way to support Breakfast Club Tanzania is to set up a regular standing order. This really helps the charity continue its challenge of feeding schoolchildren at our chosen schools in southern Tanzania.
Details for the charity are:
Bank: Co-operative Bank
Account Name: BC Tanzania
Account Number: 67266683
Sort Code: 08-92-99
Please email if you setup a standing order, with your address and that you are happy to pay Gift Aid:
The latest Breakfast Club quiz was held on the 14th September at the Charlton Kings Social Club. Seven teams battled it out for the trophy answering questions on the Paris Olympics/Paralympics, Pokemon or Paint, First & Last, World records as well as identifying animals by their Latin names finishing off with the Wipeout round. Last years winners, On Your Marks returned under the name “Your a quizzard Harry” but were unable to defend the title and lost out to past winners, the Armadillo’s, who took the trophy home with a score of 79.
The winning Armadillo’s team.
The total raised on the night along with the Go Fund me event page totaled £1545. A great achievement by all and many thanks from Rob, Gill & Lee to all those who attended, bought raffle tickets or just donated helping make the grand total. To date the quiz has raised over £22,000.
You can now donate to Breakfast Club Tanzania when buying online! Just add the donation reminder to your web browser to track any purchases through registered suppliers. Different suppliers will donate to the charity when you purchase through their sites having followed the link.
Good luck and thanks for your support
See the link for more details
You can raise FREE donations for Breakfast Club Tanzania EVERY time you shop online. Just use #easyfundraising! Over 7,000 brands will donate, including all the big names like John Lewis & Partners, BT, Expedia, Argos, ASOS, Just Eat, Uswitch and many more! Please support us: https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/breakfast-club-tanzania/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=pmc&utm_content=fb-1
Well what happened to 15, 16 and 17 you may ask? Well they did happen but life got in the way for all of us and apologies for not updating the details.
This years event was held on Friday 6th October at the Charlton Kings Social Club. Some of the old regulars were there along with some newcomers and eleven teams battled out for the Trophy over seven rounds of music, flowers, sport, 2007, US States, Strictly Come Bake off and finishing with general knowledge.
After a couple of hours of On Your Marks led the way with a winning total of 93 from a possible 108. Congratulations and hope to see you next year when you come to defend the title.
The total raised on the night and through the Go Fund Me event page has raised over £1500 for the charity. A great effort and thanks to all who contributed to a fun night.
In these days of Zoom quizzes, Breakfast Club Tanzania kept with that theme and held a fundraising Zoom event on the 20th February 2021. It was well attended and again raised much needed funds for the Charity in these difficult times for all.
So a big thank you all to those who attended, regulars and first timers, and those unable to quiz but donated, it’s very welcome and much appreciated.
The sum raised was in excess of £2000.00 with gift aid still to be added. A tremendous effort by all that will help Habiba and the team continue to deliver breakfast for the pupils for several months to come.
The 15th Annual Quiz will happen later in the year and its format will depend on the situation at that time. Hopefully we can be together and the normal fun and entertainment can return for the evening.
Due to Coronavirus the 14th Annual Breakfast Club Tanzania quiz was held online. The quiz is one of the main fundraising events of the year and despite holding it online during the lockdown we still managed to raise over £1800 excluding gift aid.
The quiz itself was the normal light hearted affair but with the added bonus of Rob “Quizmaster” Ahearne treating us all to a Vik Reeves inspired Club Singing round along with videos that should never see the light of day again!
A Hamper is on its way to the winning team, Three Men and The Baylys. The quiz was a close run contest with several teams all within a point or two of each other.
It was great to see some of the quiz veterans of previous events such as the Armadillo’s, Mid-life Crisis and Vacant Lot.
Thanks to all who took part and stay safe everybody.
With the introduction of the new school, we are delighted to announce that we have taken on two new staff to join the Breakfast Club Team.
Hidaya Ali is our new head cook. She is a 41 year old mother of 5 children, who attend Mtawanya school and lives in the local village. She has previously volunteered her time out of the goodness of her heart to feed at a different school. We felt that both her experience and positive attitude made her the perfect addition to our team. She is a hard worker and dedicated to our ethos of feeding children to provide them with a brighter future.
Hidaya Ali
Latifah
We have also taken on a delightful junior cook named Latifah. She is a 20 year old single mother of a little girl who attends the school. She is very pleased to have a job and is thrilled to have the opportunity to begin a career with Breakfast Club and the capacity to support her child.
The most exciting development of the past few months is that Breakfast Club Tanzania has implemented a project into a third school, Mtawanya Primary School!
Evie serving the first cup of uji
Delighted Mtwanya pupils having their Breakfast Club experience
Mtwanya was chosen after extensive research into the needs, location and poverty levels at schools in the area. The school has 280 pupils and is situated in a rural location outside of Mtwara town. We began feeding at the start of November and both the pupils and villagers are delighted with our arrival! Above are pictures taken on the first day, the children were so happy when we told them about our project they sang and danced in delight, it was a heart warming picture for Project Manager, Evie Davidson, whose hard work and commitment led to expanding the feeding programme. We are most thankful to Chumvini Prison who have agreed to help us with transport for delivering the ‘uji’ dry mix and the sugar to the schools. This will be a huge help in the wet season when the roads are impassable. A special thanks to Mr Kasambula at the prison for his support via their community aid scheme.
We celebrated our fourth birthday this year and we have some truly impressive accomplishments under our belt. It has been a particularly exciting past 6 months and we have exceeded even our own expectations by completing another building project, taking on more Tanzanian staff and most excitingly, implementing another feeding programme into a third school.
In May, Katy (Programme Director) worked with local artist, Anthony (pictured below) to create a selection of artwork and jewellery for the Africa Oye festival in Liverpool. Anthony is famous locally for his tinga tinga style artwork (see right). All of the art was kindly bought directly from Anthony by one of our trustees John Childs. Therefore 100% of the sales went directly to the charity. Despite the terrible weather, we managed to make £300 and publicised Breakfast Club’s work to hundreds of shivering Liverpudlians. If you are interested in this style of art Tinga Tinga painting please get in touch, as we are able to take orders from Anthony.
Wahab Issae has been extremely helpful and insightful regarding the problem of hunger amongst school children and how we can help combat this. From the beginning he has been very enthusiastic about the Breakfast Club, and has been involved in much of our research. In the past he has worked with researchers from Oxford and Harvard Universities and is highly qualified in food nutrition.
Below is the transcript of the interview between Wahab and Rob:
Question: Wahab, what do you believe are the main benefits of the work that Breakfast Club is doing at Mangamba Primary School?
Answer: Well, first and foremost I feel that providing food at school will have an extremely positive impact on the level of attendance at school. My previous research points to the fact that fewer than 20% of school children in the Mtwara region receive food before school. Providing food at school will also increase parental encouragement to attend.
I also feel that giving children food at school will increase their attention rates in class, leading to a greater understanding of what is being taught. However, this relies upon the food being of a high nutritional content, which I know is true of the food that you are providing.
Question: We provide an uji porridge made up of millet, rice, dona (a highly nutritious type of maize), sugar and milk, what impact do you think this is having on the general health of the children?
Answer: I would say that the food provided is improving the health of the children. They will be more resistant to diseases and should grow at an increased rate.
Question: We have some ideas concerning the future of this project and other projects of this nature, for example planting fruit trees at the school or providing bees nests. How else do you think we can ensure long-term sustainability?
Answer: In principal this is a good idea but you would need numerous nests to be completely self-reliant. However, bee’s nests and trees are a good idea because children can learn some useful skills at school which will benefit them later in life. The children can plant and maintain the trees and be taught beekeeping as part of their stadi za kazi (study of work) classes. In the Arusha declaration of 1967 Julius Nyerere, “the father of the nation” (Tanzania’s first independent leader), proclaimed that “education for self-reliance” is a means by which Tanzania can reduce its dependency on imports and external support and this element of your project fits into these goals. Nyerere declared it crucial that children are able to put into practice in society what they learn in school.
Question: One of our original aims was complete self-sufficiency in the long-term, can you think of any other ways we can help to increase self-reliance at the school?
Answer: If your ideas with fruit and honey are a success the only other elements of the project you need to consider are the milk and the uji mixture. It may be possible to buy cows so that the children can rear them and to ask parents to provide the bulk of the uji mixture. Since you are now using more of the very cheap but highly nutritious dona in the mix, it may be possible to use this as the main ingredient in the mixture.
Breakfast Club Tanzania would like to thank Rob Ahearne for the last six months. Having arrived off the plane clean-shaven, pale and speaking no Swahili, he returns to the UK a bearded, tanned, Swahili speaker! Rob has done a fantastic job managing and moving forward the project since the original set up and has built excellent relationships between the Breakfast Club, local government officials, school teachers and the cooks. He will be greatly missed!
In his last few weeks here, during the June school holidays, Rob handed over the project to Romy Campbell (pictured). Romy has previously worked in the area and speaks excellent Swahili. We are all extremely happy to welcome Romy to Tanzania and believe she will be a real asset to The Breakfast Club team.
Our progress…
May was our first full calendar month at Mangamba Primary School and was a great success. Attendance records from the start to the end of the month increased by around 10-15%. Generally, the attendance records of the younger children have increased more dramatically, particularly heartening since it is the younger children who will benefit from the project for the majority of their school life. We hope that this is a trend that will remain, since our commitment to the school is long-term.
