Happy New Year 🎉
Happy New Year! We hope 2023 is going well for you so far. This is a short email to let you know about our upcoming plans for the year and when we’ll be in touch. As ever, if you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Catch up with Dominic
Lizzie had a great catch up with Dominic last week. We are now working on more detailed impact measurements for the income-generating projects established so far (brick-making, piggery, poultry, nursery bed, coffee garden, and chair-hire) so we have a clear picture over time of how these projects are performing. This will help us to ensure that any additional investment grows the projects rather than subsidises them.
Dominic has identified other items that would be beneficial to them, such as water tanks for the Main Hall, replacement solar batteries, and kitchen utensils, for which we will consider support with any remaining funds from the income-generating projects. The trustees are always conscious to be allocating the majority of our funds to self-sustaining projects rather than the school’s maintenance needs.
Finally, we are keen to support the newly established KAASO Staff Development Association, which will issue microloans to individuals and groups working at KAASO to run small businesses to supplement their salaries.
Their vision is, “To create a society where workers have equal and sufficient economic and social opportunities to improve their standards of living and where they can contribute productively towards the overall development of the country.” We look forward to providing some of the initial capital for the loans once the staff members have drafted their applications.
Some projects have already started. Here are staff and students from KAASO visiting a local training centre to learn how to make bar soap, liquid soap, shampoo, and chalk for the school blackboards.
Eco week at KAASO and Northbourne Park School
From 28th February – 3rd March it’s Eco Week! KAASO and Northbourne Park School established an educational partnership in 2015. This year, the two schools will do a joint-curriculum project for Eco Week focussing on bees – their importance for us and the threats they are facing.
Bee-themed lessons will be taking place all week with the students producing art work, poetry, and posters to share with one another. We look forward to seeing what the two schools come up with!
Visiting KAASO
After a very long 4 years, Lizzie is finally going back to KAASO! Lizzie, with her boyfriend Rob, will be visiting KAASO from 12th-19th March to see the projects Unity is Strength has supported over the last few years and have a long-overdue catch-up with Dominic and Rose. They are very excited!
Total raised in 2022
Thank you so much for your continued support in 2022. We are delighted to let you know that we raised a fantastic £17,802.46 (including Gift Aid)!
We have now changed our financial year end from 31st December to 31st March to make our reporting easier, so our Annual Report and Accounts will be coming a bit later than usual this year. We hope this is ok. Please do let us know if you have any questions in the meantime.
Our newsletters will now be quarterly
Since Unity is Strength was set up in January 2020, we have aimed to send out a monthly newsletter. We will now be moving to quarterly newsletters as we want to bring you quality rather than quantity! So look out for our next one in April when we’ll have exciting news about Lizzie’s trip to KAASO in March.
Have a good couple of months. We’ll be back in touch soon!