Everything that takes place in Tanzania couldn’t happen without the work of our committee and volunteers here in the UK, so I will take this opportunity to tell you a little more about the work we do up in the Northern hemisphere, and of course, to say a massive thank you to everybody whose hard work enables Upendo to continue to thrive. The Upendo committee meets once a week at the University of Manchester. The meetings are a good opportunity to get together and make sure that everybody is up-to-date with developments in Tanzania and the UK. We usually plan our upcoming fundraising events, awareness-raising activities and plan the schedule for the summer volunteer programme.
Fundraising itself can be very broadly broken down into events, donations and sponsorship. Events take the most amount of organising on the part of the committee, but they also have the potential benefit of attracting new support and being quite a lot of fun! Over the past few months we have held bake sales, club nights, raffles and most recently a charity fashion show.
Months of effort went into organising the fashion show. A venue had to be arranged, other charities co-ordinated, sound, costumes, lighting, tickets and publicity organised, but it really did grow into a fantastic night. Essie and Kate put together an evening which raised a significant amount of money, not just for Upendo but for other local charities - Sexpression, Stop AIDS, Read International, Engineers Without Borders and Medicines Sans Frontiers all took part in a show which saw models wearing amazing outfits ranging from Burlesque to Bollywood… through to Alice in Wonderland! However (and I may concede to a slight bias here), the Upendo models stole the show as they paraded down the catwalk to the Circle of Life and other Elton John classics; rounding off the evening with a Lion King extravaganza.
Considering the close geographical relationship between Upendo and the Serengeti (it is only a couple of hours drive), the Lion King was a natural choice for an Upendo theme. But despite the close proximity, it is probably fair to say our costumes took much more influence from the West-End adaption of Disney’s classic than they did from the wonders of the Great Plains. Nonetheless, I’m sure all those who witnessed the show would agree that the combination of Tanzanian kangas, body paint and glitter ensured that from the flamingos to the giraffes, Upendo’s models looked stunning.
(I wasn’t entirely sure about one of the elephants personally, but it wouldn’t be as much fun if everything was perfect would it?)
The night and its planning was definitely a mixture of emotions in varying intensity, peaking at the nervous excitement immediately before the curtains opened. But with ticket sales running into the hundreds there is no question that the night was a great success for all the charities involved. Although we have said it a dozen times already, we really must thank Vicki, Sarah, Kate and Essie for their fantastic effort in organising such a great event and not-forgetting all the models (even that elephant) for the time, effort and courage they gave on the night!
On top of the events organised by members of the Upendo committee, Upendo could not function without the sheer generosity of individual sponsors and organisations who hold fundraisers in aid of our projects. We thanked Emmaus Mossley in our last blog for their donation which built our roof, but we must now send HUGE thanks to Brenda Townsend (Nanny Townsend to Carly) who has been a massive supporter of Upendo and without her help we would not have reached the construction milestones that we have so far. So Asante BiBi!!
Tomorrow, we are excited to be visiting L’ecole Bilingue as this year’s beneficiary of their annual Charity Sports Day. The event has been a huge success in the past, with all of the school's pupils enjoying participating and it promises to be a fun day for all involved. We will keep you updated on how the event goes and hopefully will post some pictures!
So watch this space,
Best wishes from the Upendo Team