Tumaini Fund still in need of a charity shop

The Christian charity, founded locally 22 years ago, now has significant outreach in Britain. But sometimes cashflow problems mean it is unable to pay on time its 400 outreach workers on the ground supporting 100,000 orphans in Tanzania. It can slip three or four months behind. But a flow of income through a charity shop would resolve that, said founder Dr Susan Wilson.

‘We’ve been looking for a place for a charity shop for two years,’ said Dr Wilson.

‘Five or six times we’ve nearly been able to get a place.’

The fund has multiple branches across the world and every year £500,000 is sent to Tanzania, collected from all these branches.

This money is directly for the families and children to provide things such as education, healthcare and clean water.

‘Our main resource is the people who work with the children,’ said Dr Wilson.

Unfortunately, the fund does not always have enough money to continually pay the salaries of these local parish workers, who earn £20 a month.

Dr Wilson said workers were very understanding that sometimes the charity simply did not have the money available, but kept working anyway.

The introduction of a charity shop would enable it to secure their salaries.

‘If we could have a charity shop, we could dedicate that money to paying the wages of our parish workers,’ said Dr Wilson.

The fund has around 24 volunteers willing to dedicate their time to the charity shop, from as little as two half days a month.

But as many of the volunteers are in their 70s and 80s, the building would need to be accessible, with reasonable footfall.

‘We would have a normal charity shop, good quality second-hand goods, and a corner for our Tumaini African craft products,’ said Dr Wilson.

The shop will take donations from the public and have low prices, benefitting both islanders and the workers in Tanzania.

• To help the Tumaini Fund find the perfect place for a charity shop contact Susan Wilson at yesunitumaini@yahoo.com.