A Great Big Thank You . . .
The response to our Easter Appeal was amazing. We have had so many generous donations in a very short time, that we have now bought the container, and are going ahead with shipping it at the end of May. We load it slowly, not like our big sister TFSR at Southampton who use a fork lift and do it in 4 hours! We have tried that method but prefer to load by hand as we don’t have the space to store all the pallets ready to hand.
Breaking News: Open Day on Sat 11th May 
It has been delayed for warmer weather to arrive and will now be held on Saturday 11th May. That’s only 12 days away now. We will have loads of tools for sale, those that are not asked for in Tanzania, especially our Lovingly Restored garden tools and our Fair Trade tools. An ever-expanding range of these.
We have booked a sunny day, so come and join us on the lawn – the cherry blossom should be out in all its glory.
10 am – 2 pm
Fair Trade tools arrive at last
This time we tried the Tanzanian Post Office instead of our normal carrier to bring the tools from Tanzania. So we are now also the possessor of literally thousands of postage stamps as well as three large boxes of Tanzanian tools. Following the training carried out by Dave Fields last December, the quality has certainly gone up a notch. Hand forks and trowels are as near perfect as can be, and draw knives and billhooks are harder than ever. And if anyone knows a stamp collector – then drop us an email . . .
Elimu ya Watu Wazima is the “Adult Education Group” 
They are a blacksmiths group from Musoma who were established in 1988 by four founder members; today the group has 15 members where 10 are men and 5 are women. In those days the group was making only farm implements, but nowadays the group also makes a variety of different machines like maize shellers, groundnuts hullers, brick making machines and different agro processing machines.
The group is registered under the leadership of the chairman Mr. SALBINIUS GENCHIRI. Members of the group are really enjoying the tool kits they have received from TFSR Cymru, because the tools have made their work so much easier and made them more productive. Here they are with tools from the Mwanza workshop.
Stop Press: News from Tanga . . .
One of our sewing team Denny Fitzpatrick has just returned from a visit to Tanga, where she met the indefatigable Dickson: SIDO Technical Officer and recently trained sewing machine supremo. More news on her visit next time, but here is a photo of the Ebeneza Group in their container workshop in Lusanga 40 Km from Tanga town. They received machines from us recently.
More news next month . . .