As children dear to me start back to school, I am thinking also of the Vana Trust children at St. David’s school who are also so close to my heart. As you buy school uniforms and supplies, you might also like to do the same for one of our children

Since 2004, Vana Trust has sponsored the education, provided uniforms and other supplies for children at St. David’s school in Zimbabwe affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty. We sponsor well over 100 children and the list keeps growing. We continue to support them when they leave St. David’s to go on to Sixth Form College and university. We are so proud of the exam results that the children have achieved. We also supply the school with many other necessities.

Also, the Vana Trust “breakfast club” gives over 500 children a daily hot meal. We are thrilled with the success of this venture. The children are more attentive, have gained weight and the breakfast has enticed absentee children back to school.

So please do think of donating to the Vana Trust project at St. David’s school. 100% of your donation will go to the school and here are some ideas of our projected costs.

• A year’s school fees for 1 child                                                                                £10
• A uniform, shoes & school supplies                                                                      £25
• A month of breakfasts for 1 child                                                                           £15
• A month of breakfasts for 500 children                                                          £300
• A much needed new science lab                                                                       £8000

You can donate directly at http://www.vanatrust.org.uk/. Or send a cheque payable to Vana Trust and post it to 11 Romola Road, London SE24 9BA.

Thank you so much for considering helping Vana Trust with this very worthwhile project at St. David’s School, Zimbabwe. We appreciate any help that you can give and your continued support.

And finally, I am attaching a letter from one of the Vana Trust children, Bright, with a heart warming account of his life and dreams for himself and St. David’s school. With your help we will do every thing we can to ensure that Bright can achieve his dream including sponsoring him through medical school. Children, like Bright, are the future.

With warm regards on behalf of everyone at Vana Trust

Cathryn McNaughton
CEO, Vana Trust

In the year 2000, I read an article about how working the earth, for example gardening, healed adults with emotional and mental health difficulties, and I thought this idea might work for children. This was my own experience of taking out some children in London to my personal allotment. I thought children and young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties might be helped with this form of therapy.

In July 2003 I moved from London to a house with seven acres on the border of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. I visited the nearby Bridewell Therapeutic Organic Garden, which was set up by Paul Tompkinson. Following this I really formulated my idea that a therapeutic farm was a worthwhile project in relation to children. About this time, Bridewell appointed Jenny Tricker and Sue Taylor, who were seconded by Oxfordshire Mental Health Team, as development workers. These two workers helped me to develop the idea of a therapeutic project using the agricultural field at the back of my house. We met every six weeks until June 2005.

Through these meetings we decided to set up an organic therapeutic farm project under the Vana Trust charity. We amended the aims and objectives to include the farm project, and this was granted by The Charity Commission.

I really like the link between the two projects within Vana Trust because it is all about supporting disadvantaged children and their families and they do say charity begins at home!!   Nyasha Gwatidzo

We hope to see you at the Fete.  Rosemary and Thyme want to meet YOU!

Jane’s parents died when she was eight.  She and her two sister are being brought up by her grandparents like so many young people in Zimbabwe. Without the help of Vana Trust these girls would not be able to attend school.  Jane walks the 10k round trip every day but her younger sister is too ill to attend school. Jane is head girl at St David’s, with ambitions to become a nurse. Her elder sister, Anna, was the first Vana Trust sponsored student to be accepted into a university to train as a teacher.

Nyasha Gwatidzo, our founder, chats with Jane on this video clip.  Please excuse the sound quality of the film.

Why did I set up Vana Trust when there so many charities already doing such wonderful work? In the 1990s the media was full of the plight of African children affected by AIDS/HIV and poverty. I was busy setting up my own business and was much more of an observer of the news, but I felt a need within myself to do something to help.  For those who know me they would know how passionately I feel about children and I see them very much as our future. I also feel that this charity is one way for me giving back to society – hence the strap line ‘contributing to the community’.

My own family in Africa was dying leaving children in very difficult situations. My mother became a real campaigner about how we could help. We started with her just taking old clothes to support these children. I then thought why not set up a small charity to help a local primary school, which my mother went to herself as a child. I spent some time in this village and could feel the hopelessness and helplessness in the community. People seemed to be in a basic survival mode, living in conditions of serious poverty. Many people had experienced bereavement, but were unable to fully express their grief, as this would exert additional pressure on their extended families. Feelings of loss and anger were therefore suppressed and not worked through.

Vana Trust as a charity was born soon after this visit, in my sitting room with those friends and family I had been talking to for years. We wanted Vana Trust to exist formally so we could fund raise properly, and send the money raised straight to the children who needed it. We made further links directly with head teachers and realised that the school could make this possible through their administration. We decided that we could best help by financially supporting the children affected so that they could attend school and get an education.

Vana Trust was registered as a charity in July 2004 for the relief of poverty, sickness and distress, the advancement of education and the preservation and protection of good health of children and young people in Africa and UK.

and then there is the beginnings of the organic therapeutic farm but that story is for another day.