Our next entry in the 'Tool of the Week' gallery is this lovely set of garden tools. There's a great set of photos if you follow the link. Super cute, built to last and lovingly restored.

It's appropriately International Women's day today ( March 8, 2021) as this post is about Florah Magabe. She is an amazing woman who is working to reduce poverty and improve lives of women in Tanzania. A philanthropist, political activist and popular speaker for women's rights and empowerment. She is currently the private secretary to the MP for Nyamagana [...]

Mwanza is a large city, the second largest in Tanzania. It's full of contrasts and has fascinating rock formations and a location on Lake Victoria that is incredibly beautiful. It's the home of our second workshop as well and this photo shows our local crew, John, Viviana and Saidi who have worked hard for us for years [...]

We're introducing a new feature in our online shop. We're  calling it 'Tool of the week' it will feature an unusual or rare or even confusing item from our stock. We say this a lot but, we get all sorts of tools donated by the lovely people who know about our charity and some of the tools are [...]

Our big push last year was 'Keep them Singers Singing', a project that not only delivered hundreds of sewing machines but also trained dozens of tailors and seamstresses in maintaining and repairing the machines. The follow on successes we expect from this is (at least) two fold. Particularly in rural areas, it will make the tailors and seamstresses [...]

You see some pretty inventive ways to transport goods when the need is great and the infrastructure isn't.  Scenes like these are actually commonplace. Although they get their goods to where they need to be it's obviously hard work. Tanzania is such a land of contrasts. Cities like Dar Es Salaam or Mwanza bustle and hum with all [...]

The weather is beginning to warm up, The garden beckons and the tool shed is feeling neglected. If you're hearing the call to sort out the garden here's a display of the types of tools we usually have in stock. Since we're closed for everything but online sales and 'click and collect' we suggest you send us a [...]

Although the workshop is closed due to lockdown regulations we have found a dozen tools we can list in our online shop. Some of our volunteers have been able to work on refurbishing from their homes and our staff are working hard to keep stocks available and to keep you up to date with our status in these [...]

From our Instagram feed...

I'm not sure why this lovely machine is so appealing. It might be the steampunk aesthetic? The promise of better weather to come? It could be the little wooden handles that seem too small for the job. It's probably not the tool for someone with a huge lawn or who lives on a steep hill but you [...]

John Mtalingi, who is one of our team at the Mwanza workshop has sent us some photos of the container. As you can see the reloading of the container was done quickly and sadly with a little less attention to detail than Phil Pope usually spends ensuring a safe transport of the tools. We're sure everything made it [...]

Big news from Mwanza. The container (our 15th) has finally arrived. It's been a long journey for this load as the ship seemed to wander from port to port until finally landing in Dar Es Salaam. When it arrived it was unloaded on the dock, an amazing effort in itself, and then refilled (as you can imagine [...]

We've finally been able to add a group of tools to our online shop today. Everything from fair-trade tools made by blacksmiths we partner with in Tanzania to a vintage skipping rope. Please take a look there might be something that strikes your fancy.   On line shop  

Remember that awesome hand plane we featured a while back. The level of engineering was so high it became art. This little fellow, on the other hand, starts out as craft and just stays there looking beautiful and useful and very touchable. There are lots more photos of it on our eBay store.

Some memories of how we used to interact with our supporters. Now we're looking forward to a time we can do this again. Stay safe everyone.

We know you're as interested as we are. No really, we are. We love tools. If you are curious about the billhooks of the world (and some history of Spear and Jackson) these pages should be interesting. courtesy of Bob Burgess These pages contains an interesting history of S & J, plus several old catalogues with different patterns of [...]

The floor joists have been installed. The next job will be blocking (noggins?) and then the floor proper can be laid on top. Once that is done there will be a wall to build and electrics and then the work can move down to the workshop itself where we will be redesigning the workspace. It's a big [...]

We mention often that we occasionally receive rare, vintage tools which we decide to sell locally to raise funds for our projects. The decision balances the usefulness of the tool against the income it might generate here to help with expenses. This amazing hand plane is now available on our eBay shop. It's quite an amazing piece [...]

Did you know you could help Tools for Self Reliance - Cymru raise much needed funds for free during the Coronavirus pandemic just by shopping via #easyfundraising? Over 4,400 online retailers including Just Eat, Now TV, Uswitch, Domino's Pizza and Audible are ready to give a free donation every time you shop online. Sign up here: https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/tfsrcymru/?utm_campaign=raise-more&utm_content=c19-f8

In the photos here you can make out the new floor beam that was installed to support the expanded mezzanine floor. The expanded upper floor space will become storage area for unrefurbished tools and supplies as well as the larger and much cleaner home of our eBay sales studio. Moving these functions up opens a lot of [...]