A new tools collection point in Carmarthen is up and running, and Colin Hill picked up some nice tools today. It's in the Healthy Planet bookstore, which is in the old Allied Carpet store in Pensarn, Carmarthen. The store is currently open Monday to Saturday from 10am, closing times in the afternoon vary. For up to date opening [...]
We had a wonderful dry Green Man Festival Our workshops were as popular as ever - blacksmithing hooks and pokers, and making hazel whistles. Sold a few tools too . . .
A large lorry blocked Standard Street this week while volunteers unloaded an enormous pile of tools collected in the recent "Tools Amnesty", run by the the Garden Centre Group with garden centres in South Wales. . Many thanks to Julie Sheldon who organised this. .
Click to read all about our efforts last year . . . . Annual Review 2009.2010 for email
Jane Davidson, Welsh Assembly Minister for the Environment, was impressed with the Fair Trade tools on our stall at the Brecon Beacons Green Fair. . . . . . She was one of many who bought a goat bell made from recycled steel by Milundumo Group, rural blacksmiths from Shinyanga Region. They plan to buy a shearing machine [...]
We are so pleased to announce that Dr William Shija has just agreed to become the first patron of TFSR Cymru. Dr Shija is the Secretary General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and is based in London. His post has just been extended for another five years. He comes from Sengerema, a small town in Tanzania [...]
We have new Fair Trade Tools - adzes and spar hooks - just arrived from Anthony Safari Blacksmiths Group in Geita, Tanzania Available with or without a leather blade cover. Visit our workshop or buy online
Recently we have been at The Big Apple - Much Marcle, Abergavenny World Trade Fair, Brecon Beacons Green Fair, Green Man Festival, Sennybridge Show, Abergavenny Food Festival, and the Big Skill, Penpont.
Green Man Festival - Crickhowell Thursday 19th August - Sunday 22nd August. Some rain some shine . . . We sold our lovingly refurbished tools, and our new Fair Trade Tools from Tanzania. Our Tanzanian-style forge and simple forging workshops were popular as ever. We made green wood stools too.
You can now purchase our Fair Trade Tools online. All profits from selling these tools go towards our project which provides training to blacksmiths groups within Lake Zone, Tanzania. They are taught new skills on the forge, better hardening and finishing techniques, and helped with marketing their products. Carpentry groups also receive training in maintaining their tools. This [...]
The Mwanza Workshop and has been up and running since June 2005. The two Tanzanian workers Saidi and Vivienne are turning out tool kits for artisan groups in Lake Zone, refurbishing over 200 kits a year, about four times the output of our Crickhowell workshop. Saidi has been out and about in Mwanza Region, carrying out [...]
Our forth container of tool kits and unrefurbishd tools was sent to Tanzania in September 2009. Now almost all the tools have been refurbished and distributed to groups in Laze Zone. We are about to send Container No 5. Container No 3 loading and ready to go - Oct 2008
Over the past 26 years TFSR Cymru has sent more than 500 kits of tools (35,000 refurbished tools) to blacksmiths, carpenters, tailors and other artisan groups throughout Africa. We have become quite successful at collecting hand tools from across Wales; they now arrive at our workshop in Crickhowell faster than we can refurbish them. In Tanzania [...]
In February 2005 we sent off the container, weighing 17 tonnes and holding over 16,000 tools and pieces of equipment. It has passed through Dar es Salaam, and is at last in Mwanza. Now SIDO staff have turned that load into a fully functioning tool-refurbishing workshop - only two staff at present - soon to be four. The [...]
Glyn Roberts Founder of Tools for Self Reliance Something puzzles me, something about people using tools. This is a very human activity and nearly always a good one. But if the idea of tools in use is that good, why doesn't the Tools for Self Reliance message spread like wildfire around the world, in North and South alike? [...]