Lawrance Titterton

Women’s groups help expand our beaded jewellery range

November 3, 2013 by Lawrance Titterton Leave a Comment

We are very proud of the women’s groups who make our wonderful woven baskets who have shown a great eagerness to be trained in making the paper beads for necklaces, bracelets and earrings that we sell, allowing us to increase the volume and range.

We have provided funding for this training and the women are extremely happy and enthusiastic to be working with us. They are looking to produce the beads for their local markets as well as to sell to us. See our stunning beaded jewellery on our online shop. http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/alongsideafrica?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

Soroptomists Support Girls in Kabale

July 4, 2013 by Lawrance Titterton Leave a Comment

Soroptimists inspire action and create opportunities to transform the lives of women and girls through international partnerships. We are looking forward to working with them to change the lives of young women in Uganda. They are proud to sponsor two young women: Charity and Prossy.

Charity is the third child in her family. All the children have only finished primary school as the parents are too poor to allow them to go to secondary school. At the moment Charity is staying at home with her parents trying to survive by growing vegetables in a small garden next to their house. Without some training Charity has no chance of breaking out of this poverty cycle she was born into.

Prossy started secondary school when some of her family managed to scrape together the money for her school fees. She was unable to finish her final exams though, because there was no money for the exam entrance fees and she subsequently had to drop out. She is currently living with her parents growing vegetables in a small garden

Supporting school in rural village Kiriba | Alongside Africa

December 7, 2012 by Lawrance Titterton Leave a Comment

This is a small, (60 pupils) school that was started in 2005 in a rural village called Kiriba (pronounced Chiriba) on the edge of the Bwindi forest. This forest is renowned for gorilla trekking, but most of the villages in the area, including several Batwa communities, (an endangered pygmy tribe), are very poor with little or no access to more resources.

The school was established by AIDS widows trying to provide education and a future for their children.

Alongside Africa set out to help the school by finding sponsors for some of the poorest pupils – if their fees are paid the school can develop, it will have money for food for the children’s lunches and, with enough help, the teachers might even be paid a salary. Since October 2012 three children have now been sponsored via our Give A Child A Chance programme.

Help us help this small but vital school by sponsoring a Graeme Naish Memorial School child today; our target for the coming months is to increase sponsorship to 20 pupils. This will enable the school to become self-sustainable.

Amazing Love School Update

December 7, 2012 by Lawrance Titterton Leave a Comment

In October the children of Amazing Love School took part in a competition to design a picture for Alongside Africa to use on their 2012 Christmas Card. Children here get few or no opportunities to use paints and colours With the help of a few art lessons from Monica they had a wonderful time producing many fine examples! The proud winner was Tumukunde Bruno pictured here. Bruno and the 3 runners up were presented with a small gift of art materials.

Before breaking up for their Christmas Holiday on the 17^th November the school were very busy helping the pupils of P7 prepare for their Primary Leaving Exam, the results of which determines whether they can go to secondary school and the quality of school they can go to – a bit like 11+ but for everyone. The P7 class did their final exams on 5 & 6 November. As far as we know they all did well, but we have to wait until 21 January until we get the results. The new school year starts on 28 January.

Our Alongside Africa Give A Child A Chance sponsorship programme programme has grown steadily this year and Alongside Africa are proud to announce 27 children at Amazing Love School now have sponsors from the UK. This is a fantastic achievement and we thank our generous supporters and friends for this crucial help for their hard working students.

3 Months in Kabale, Uganda

December 7, 2012 by Lawrance Titterton Leave a Comment

On the 7^th September 2012, our Chairman Lawrance and his wife Monica set off for a 3 month stay in Kabale, Uganda with a focus on strengthening and developing relationships with our NGO partners there and building their capacity. At a time when there is a spotlight on corruption associated with aid going to developing countries it is important that we ensure that our NGO Partners have the policies, processes and systems in place that will give reassurance to our supporters.

It was to prove a roller coaster stay with many highs and some lows, various challenges but much progress. Whilst Monica concentrated on working on improving academic standards withon the schools that we work, with Lawrance was involved in developing and implementing new financial policies and new accounting systems and working with each of the NGO partners to strengthen their governance structures.

It was reassuring to see throughout the trip that the Alongside Africa maxim of ‘opportunities, not aid’ has such a strong resonance within the communities that we work with. People who have so little still have their self esteem and do not simply want to receive hand outs; they continually tell us that they simply want an opportunity to help themselves.

As a result of the success of this trip Monica and Lawrance will be returning for a further three months in Uganda towards the end of January 2013.