Speaker Howard Cleveland - Tools With A Mission

Howard explained to us the process the charity goes through. They don’t just send out tools and hope for the best. Rather people in Africa contact their local centre and request what they need. He gave an example of a group of ladies called Nakakabula women's group. They have no power or clean water in their village and life is subsistence farming. But without money they cannot buy goods. So they were given sewing machines (the old treadle type) and now they make goods to sell in the local market and also make school uniform for their children. The charity supports 400 similar groups a year around Africa.

Once an application has been made the local African centre sends the information back to UK to be packed on next shipment Last year 14 containers were sent containing 250 tons of tools. The aim this year is to double that.

There are Collectors like Howard all around England & Wales. A lot of tools come from bereavements or people who are now too old to use the tools. There are 3 vans which come from the processing centres and pick up from collectors. The tools are then delivered to one of the 6 processing centres (Ipswich, Rugby, Halstead, Sutton Coldfield, Chichester and Chesterfield). Here volunteers (usually retired engineers) refurbish them. They are then forwarded to the head office in Ipswich for packing into the containers to be shipped to Africa.

Howard gave an example of a main depot in Africa the RIZE (Reducing Illiteracy in Zambia with E-Learning) project in Lusaka Zambia where unemployment is 70%. This group have for example helped: -

1. Neboth who taught himself to read and write and has now started a small school. TWAM has provided tools for online learning. The 90 students frequently orphaned or from single parent homes.

2. Ansuma also volunteers to teach carpentry He has made all the furniture in the school and also helps the parents make furniture to sell.

3. Anim who has made the school uniforms and in afternoon teaches parents to sew so that they can raise money by selling their wares.

RIZE now raises enough money through tailoring and carpentry to feed the children at lunchtime. They have had 2 sewing machine 1 computer and a carpentry kit.

Another example is Patricia in Uganda whose went to the “Mindset” project which teaches tailoring. She spent 1 year learning and specialises in making bags with a sewing machine supplied by TWAM. She 

has a small workshop lent to her by a relative and is trying to make enough money for school and university.

The details of the tools wanted can be found here. Tools Needed

A leaflet giving more details can be found here. Tools With A Mission

Their web site is here - https://www.twam.uk/about