About Angels for Africa

THE STORY….

Once upon a time a young woman named Carol Sandiford travelled in Africa and was moved by the plight of many Africans, particularly children. Wanting tomake a difference she decided to make greetings cards to raise funds to supportneedy African children. On her return to Adelaide she had copies made of photographs she had taken of wild life and people about their daily business of existing, to support a group of schools in Malawi. Other fundraising efforts followed, including efforts from various family members and friends, the usual garage sales, stalls at fairs etc.

Then Carol fell in love with the man who became her husband and subsequently they went to live and work in Melbourne. That left her mother, Sallie, to support the Africa ‘baby’ !! Her lovely boss Sue suggested buying a bag of potatoes tocook and sell at work for lunches and so – Eat for Africa was born. Each Sunday night for 6 months of the next few years Sallie was busy grating cheese and chopping fresh cabbage for coleslaw for the next day and served with spudsbaked in the oven at work for Monday lunches.

Thus we were able to provide writing equipment for the schools which Carol had been supporting and to send the occasional bag of clothing. The school principal would dutifully write to Sallie with full details about how money had been spent and the total (this many notebooks, this many pencils, etc etc.) The main ‘rule’ was that the money must only be spent directly to help the children with their education (no ongoing expenses such as pay for teachers etc.) This went on for a few years, the potatoes bringing in around $1600 a year. Then one year the

‘accounting’ included “Accommodation for CEO” followed by an amount in the local currency equivalent to around $800 – approximately half of what we had raised for the year!

The upshot was that we started looking for another charity to support in Africa – the criteria being, no attachment to a particular religious group and no big overheads. Carol found Ralph Hoey and World Youth International and we started taking our funds there and eventually, in 2005 Sallie took the plunge and did what she had wanted to do for some time, went to Africa (Kenya) as a 3-month volunteer with WYI and stayed at the small orphanage they had recently built in Nyamasaria, a few kilometres from Kisumu. Sallie had not thought to ask for help but daughter Carol (now back living in Adelaide with her family) cooked up a marvellous dinner to raise funds to pay the airfare. In addition, Rita worked untiringly to run a film afternoon which included a spectacular raffle and tables

of food resembling a banquet, and work bosses Sue and Alan ran a fun and successful dinner function including African cuisine (is that an oxymoron?) and a quiz around Africa, involving their church members. So Sallie had several thousand dollars to take with her to Kisumu – what an honour! What a

responsibility!

With all these people working on her behalf for her volunteering time in Kenya, Sallie began to wonder what she herself could do to raise funds and, being a parttime leadlight artist/teacher she decided to make items for sale and started feverishly manufacturing coloured glass angels as suncatchers to hang in windows to sell among her friends and workmates. So that was how “Eat for Africa” became “Angels for Africa". And Sallie went to stay in Nyamasaria at the orphanage built by WYI.

Due to a serious mishap involving her 8- year-old grandson being admitted to intensive care Sallie had to suddenly curtail the stay at the orphanage and return to Australia after only 3 weeks of the planned 3 months. As fate would have it the whole world seemed to be in the air at that time and not an immediate seat to be had for love nor money. In the 3 intervening days Sallie worked very hard – partly to fulfil her debt to the people who had worked so hard to raise funds for her to take to Kenya. She had already met the principal of the large primary

school (1200 children) which the orphans attended and was immediately introduced to the committee there – a terrific team. The upshot was that the first classroom was already started during the 3 days before returning to Adelaide – forget councils and permissions!! And an agreement drawn up to pay for it in 4 instalments as progress was made on the spot. 2 instalments were made while Sallie was there, one for the materials, delivered immediately, and one to pay the builder and his workmen for work in progress, and the other two transferred

from Australia. The final payment was transferred only after the classroom hadbeen inspected by a World Youth International representative.

During those few days an agreement was also drawn up for the manufacture ofnbookcases for the classrooms, as well as finalising lessons in sewing ‘moon pads’ [washable sanitary pads] made of soft washable cotton fabric to replace the rags which were often made from discarded and worn-out polyester clothing. Sallie had already used some of the precious donated funds to buy 2 treadle sewing machines (no electricity) and fabric, as well as chairs needed for the orphanage where she was staying. A lot of the previous 3 weeks had been spent repairing the school uniforms of the orphans as they were in very poor condition, in fact would have been thrown away here in Australia as being way beyond recycling.

School children in Kenya have 3 languages by their 3rd year at school, their tribal language, spoken at home and in their local community; Kiswahili, the native language of Kenya, spoken inter-tribally and in the wider community, and thirdly English, the language of education. Observing that there were no books or posters in any of the classrooms, and none for sale at affordable prices, Sallie determined that when she arrived back in Australia she would send story books so that these primary school children could enjoy reading English. A privilege our children are fortunate to be able to take for granted. Over the first decade we sent thousands of donated story books via Australia Post – it was one of our best – loved projects. These children had never even seen a story book before and it was like opening a magic door for them. Sadly, this project is no longer viable because postage from Australia suddenly doubled. In Kenya the government put an impost on all 2nd hand imports which meant that the schoolscould not afford to receive the books!

 Around this time 2 of her best leadlight students (formerly work colleagues), Paula and Chris, having filled their respective houses with beautiful leadlight windows, offered to continue coming down from their homes in the Adelaide hills on a Tuesday afternoon to Sallie’s home studio and use their well-honed skills to help with the manufacturing process – a generous offer which was gratefully snatched up.

Over the years we have added many new items to our stained glass repertoire including gum leaves, yachts, hearts, cats, birds, butterflies, and Christmas trees, to name a few. We sell these items, attractively packaged, for a nominal sum, thanks to all our loyal and hard working volunteers.

We have also found additional ways of raising funds, for example fund raising involving food or films [or occasionally both!] and from time to time we receive very generous cash donations from private benefactors. Every cent raised from every direction goes directly towards the education and wellbeing of needy

Kenyan children in rural areas.

From time to time we welcome new members to the team, and now number around 14 volunteers.