Have you ever seen a coffee tree?

Yes, Maybe, No,, does coffee grow on trees, well what do you think?

I don't know I buy mine at the supermarket!


This is a coffee tree and it in Besi's veg patch. It takes 4 years from the point of planting to the point of bearing fruit (the coffee beans)Besi doesn't grow enough to sell but were she to sell, she would earn 50pence per kilo. Her tree is for personal use.




This is the other side of Besi's vegetable patch. Here she grows bananas and for the benefit of those that have never seen a banana tree that is what it looks like. She grows other vegetables too and if she has more than what she needs she swaps with Mary and the others



In this village children do not normally go to school until they are 7 years old. The villagers felt that this as not ideal situation and thanks to their friend
Ann McCarthy their dream of having a nursery school. It is not quite finished as the floor is yet to go don and there are no windows. It is however usable, and on Ann's last visit she had a go at taking a class of 30 children for a whole afternoon!



This is a camping space outside the nursery school and doubles as a play area too.




This is papyrus, it is the main raw material in basket weaving and useful for making mats. This fascinates me because on it's own it is useless but with the concept of value addition it brings financial independence to Besi and the other women in the village




This is a temporary youth centre where the young people come to watch TV and video. It also double as a village hall, and although it is not completed in any sense they have electricity and oh those mats are made out papyrus.

Would you like to learn more or support our efforts in this village?

If so please drop me a note

Let Them Help Themselves Out of Poverty

They are people in the world that find themselves in circumstances beyond their control. Something that is unique about these people is that they are resilient, friendly and welcoming and above all they do not ask for much.

I have recently returned from Uganda and was fortunate to visit such people, and it is the best holiday I have ever had. A particular community I visited is in a remote village in SW Uganda and they are in dire need of clean water. This is not an unrealistic expectation in my mind after all we expect to turn on the taps and get clean, germ and bacteria free water.

The current situation is that the women and children walk down the hills that you can see on my profile photgraphs to get dirty water, they carry it back the hill and walk down again to fetch firewood to enable them to boil the water on an open fire to rid it of germs and bacteria. This process takes up to 3 hours and understandably they are so exhausted by the end of it that they skip the bit where they have to go down the hill to fetch the firewood and they use the untreated water.

As a result of this those with compromised immune systems such as the children, elderly or the sick cannot survive.

With this in mind I have got together with a few friends to do something about this water situation. We have had the a quote for the cost of getting clean water in and that stands at £8000-£10000. this is not an awful lot of money in the scheme of things especially as that it would bring clean water to over 10,000.

We have a fundraising event at the Hilton Hotel in Cobham Surrey on 17 Oct 2008 to kick start this effort. We however haven't had much luck with ticket sales thus far and ironically stand to pay a cancellation fee of £4000 to teh hotel!

Can you help us? I sincerely hope so.

Further details are at www.lethemhelpthemselves.com/events