Anybody can help on betterplace.org – as an individual or as a group. And equally, anybody can receive help not just large well-known charitable organisations, but also small grassroots initiatives round the corner from you, or anywhere in the world. The main thing is: everything is transparent.

You might want to give it a go. Betterplace.org

If this little girl gets the chance to go to school, herself and her own children will have a rosier future that what is facing her at this moment and the world will be a better place. Send a gift today. Thank you.

This Saturday I went to a T4A training meeting together with other small charities working in Africa to learn, share expertise and network together.

I am a great believer in networking and in the benefits which can derive from charities working together wherever possible, particularly when working internationally.  I am sure we all know the anecdotal stories of villages where several charities discover they are duplicating efforts. I know from my own experience of African towns that have twinned with multiple UK donors. Recently in western Uganda I was astonished to find almost 20 local NGOs operating in a small geographical area. They had become the main local industry and employer!

If we are going to do Development effectively we need to work smarter. I believe that T4A is part of working smarter and the benefits of meeting together for events like this are manifold.

I came away from the day with some key tips for researching and drafting more effective trust fund applications.  I also learned about how to make money from websites but one of the most valuable benefits was simply being able to talk and share experiences with others.

The 750 students at this co-educational school for 11 – 18 year olds vote each year for the charity they would like to support. They chose Mustard Seed Project because they knew that every penny that they raised would count and make a difference. Each of the twelve houses thinks of their own fundraising idea in addition to whole school events.

“Thank you so much for this suggestion. Following reading your post back in May I made a call to someone at the XXX  Foundation and subsequently submitted an initial introductory letter. One of the Board Members was then in touch and requested much more detail about our proposal so that he could take up our cause and propose us to his fellow Board Members. I have just this morning received an email from him informing me that the Trustees have decided to award us a grant of £12,500 towards our current school reconstruction project. This would not have happened without you posting your message so a BIG thank you – this just goes to show one of the many benefits of T4A..!”

Two months ago,  Roger of Osiligi Charity Projects sent the following email to Annie of the kanga project.  “Thanks for the name some time ago of the XXXX foundation. We received a cheque from them for £11,500 for the school. Any other suggestions for donors for education projects?”

These are just two recent examples of the help members of Together 4 Africa are giving and receiving.  Much of it is often on a one to one basis and so today we want to urge all our members to contribute on the charities section of the forum so that we can ALL dip into a deeper pool of knowledge. We need lots and lots of tins with our name on them.

Oh and if you want to know what Foundations they are talking about, well you need to be a member.

Oh that wind did make things difficult

So it took ages to set up but it all looked good in the end.

22 panels of display, a talkative Paul and smart looking helpers. Where are the punters?

Here they are! A good turnout, a great atmosphere

Our young helpers were great at handing out our popular little flags

Is he watching? Is he having a rest? He was most certainly watching.

Day 2, spot the difference. The wind got the better of us but the sun came out!

So what about the passion? Well it came from our encounters with people just as passionate about wanting to make a difference as we are. May be we talked mostly to the converted, but at least, they now know about us. Thank you Liverpool, it was a most enjoyable 2 days.

Traditional style of cooking is not energy efficient and the soot is hazardous

Approximately 3 billion people (1/2 the planet) are reliant on cooking their food over open fires. The problems associated with this have been well documented in the past and include pollution from soot which leads to respiratory problems; the release of carbon into the atmosphere adding to the problem of global warming; as well as deforestation and the environmental impact that represents.

An article in The Daily Telegraph (7.5.11) tells us that many development agencies have for a long time being urging open fire users to use cleaner stoves and have offered designs to assist them. A brilliant design that has recently been winning awards is the Biolite stove which amazingly also generates electricity. It sells, The Daily Telegraph tells us, for $20. I am not sure if that is $20 in the US or $20 in the small town markets in rural Africa. It does not say.

According to The World Bank in 2005 there were 1.4 Billion people living on less than $1.25 a day, this is the recognised International Poverty Line. Families living here do not have a disposable income that allows them to save $20 to buy a stove. So who is going to buy and distribute these amazing stoves? I commend the brilliance of the invention but am worried that the solution is the result of a science project and as such fails to recognise some of the most important problems surrounding the people at whom it is aimed. This is the problem with many “solutions” in that they are far too linear.

The enclosed fire focuses the heat into the pot and the fire heats the pipe that also heat the water.

The Livingstone Tanzania Trust understands that poverty is a complex web of inter related problems and understand that the solutions need to be just as inter related and address as many of the problem rather than just one.

The Livingstone Tanzania Trust is supporting local women’s groups with knowledge and skills training to assist them with their fuel efficient stove projects. Their stoves are made locally and so can be distributed locally, the profits from the business is returned to them which boosts their income and helps them achieve their own goals. The stoves are selling for only $5 and are 60-75% efficient, which might not be as efficient as Biolite, but are sufficient enough to slow down deforestation and allow the community to plant trees at a rate closer to that of their demand. Another project we help them with. We have also agreed subsidise the stoves by $1.50 to enable the price to be $3.50 so that more people can benefit from stoves. A household buying wood for the stove will have made savings greater than the purchase price within the first year. We figure that a £1 donation is not too much to ask to have such a fantastic impact.

We are also subsidizing the women to go to Dodoma and learn about different stove making styles to add to their skills and motivate them to continue with this fantastic project. The training is being provided by Sunseed Tanzania and represents how small NGO’s are working together, through an organisation called Together4Africa to pool knowledge to make a greater impact in the communities we are working in.

The bottom line to the fuel efficient stove situation is that the problems of open fire cooking cannot be solved without addressing the other needs of the community. They are all part and parcel of the same problem.

Well let’s start with the home page.
• You can now find charities by country or by the causes they support.
• You can watch a film to cut out the boredom. We’ll change it from time to time to keep your interest fresh.
• You can discover a project that needs funding and every charity gets a chance at grabbing your attention because, wait for it, this little box is driven by a wp cycle thingy, we are told.
• You get an invite to find out about the new big word on the block: DIY development and fortunately for you it requires no trip to B&Q or the local hardware store.
• You can still read all the latest posts and News Flash of course and still be able to try and catch hold of one of our dancing logos at the bottom.

But beneath the skin is where the fun begins.
What stands out amongst the many changes and additions is the new Contribute section. In the Find a Project page you’ll be able to see all the worthy projects competing for your attention and, yes of course, your money. The re-designed Find a Charity page has been moved there and all our member charities are ready for inspection in alphabetical order; some will so wish their name didn’t start with W. But we know you’ll take the trouble of checking us all out. The Learn More tab takes you to the charity’s own page within the website. Charities will be encouraged to add on further information in there shortly.

It is now much easier to find the information you want.
All posts and projects related to a charity are within their new charity page which can also be accessed via the Member Charities page in the About us section.

All posts intent on informing you about development in general have their own Development News page in the Community section where you can also find a new Links & Information page containing the latest RSS feeds from 3 interesting websites and a list of useful (if a little stern) websites to which we will keep adding of course.

T4A now blows its own trumpet (well, not quite, more like a loudspeaker actually) into a new page called T4A News under the For Charities section. It is very much about internal affairs. Need I say more?

If you are a Charity, the Notice Board is your new treasure trove for information along with the Resources page as before and the Worth Knowing page that has been redesigned and stuffed with new things. The new Members Charities only section in the Forum is there for charity members to interact and pass on trade secrets.

A Volunteer in UK and Volunteer in Africa page have been added under the Contribute section. The new Films page in the Community section rivals anything on the TV for people who care about development and show-casts films made by some of our member charities too. Finally many of the other pages have had a bit of a make over, so when you’ve got a minute do check them out too.

Nearly everything we will write on the website will be post driven. This means that if you register your email address or get a RSS feed, you will never miss out on anything new. We really hope to see lots of people and charities adding to the debate with comments and posts.

So what do you think? Was it worth the effort? If you think so, please do leave a comment and tell others about Together 4 Africa. If you don’t, well…. Hmm, drop us a line (if you dare, that is). Thank you for visiting.