Nurturing home-grown development in South Africa

www.thatu.org

Three new projects for Thatu's third birthday!

Thatu has just turned three years old and thanks to you we can celebrate by funding three new projects. Two are projects with new partners and another is the development of an existing partnership made possible by our biggest donation yet. We've had to select from a shortlist of six, so, if you can, please help us to give the other three as yet unfunded projects a helping hand - there are details of novel Christmas gifts below.

A needy garden not far from the affluent winelands

Soil for Life in Cape Town is a new partner whose work we have admired for some years.

We will be providing funds over the next two years to develop food gardens in a community development in the old railway town of Touws River, east of Cape Town. Produce goes to the schools' soup kitchens and some is processed for sale.

Soil for Life will train volunteers in sustainable gardening and crafts such as jam and preserve making. Gardeners will receive a small income until they generate enough to support themselves.

At the end of the two years the aim is for the project to be self sustaining and to generate income and employment.

A library food garden

The Rhodes Park Library food garden in Johannesburg is the impressive result of librarian Edith Mvlase's efforts to provide food for the AIDs Hospice in Jeppestown. Thatu is helping by providing funds for their immediate needs of tools, watering systems, and seeds.

Seeding the Western Cape

With our biggest donation to date, we are also able to continue to help SEED (Schools Environmental Education and Development) in a new three year programme for schools in the Western Cape. This project has been made possible through a very significant ongoing monthly donation from a generous ex-pat South African.

Ecohouse preview

Our most recent event was held in Will Anderson's ecohouse in Clapham. Thatu benefited from the donations and we all enjoyed the talk and tour of the house, food and drink and interesting company.

So this festive season, please help Thatu:

Stuck for ideas for Christmas presents? How about giving your friends colleagues and relatives a virtual water tap? Or maybe some compost for use on one of our projects? If you'd like something more conventional, what about some herb plants or fruit trees?

Please look at the Thatu website www.thatu.org and its Shop for gifts that can really make a difference.

If you don't like buying on the web, just give me a call!

Gifts prices start at £5.We will send your recipient a beautiful gift certificate and we may even be able to claim back some tax through Gift Aid to ensure that Thatu receives even more than you give!

Thank you for all your support and please think of South Africa this Christmas.

If you would prefer to receive a hard copy of our newsletter, or no longer wish to receive one, please email us at info@thatu.org

Thatu is a UK Registered Charity No. 1108655