2022 marks 20 years since our Founder and Patron, Dr Apakombwele van der Boom-Chisuse, founded Funsani Home. Her hope was to provide a loving and caring home for orphaned and vulnerable children impacted by HIV in her native Zambia.
We are aiming to raise a whopping £20k to mark our 20-year anniversary. We’re 9 months through the year and already well on our way. You can keep track of how we're progressing against our target using the 20th birthday fundraising tracker on our Home page.
And what a busy year it's been so far! This newsletter contains lots of exciting news about our fundraising activities and updates from Funsani Home.
As always, you can follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram to get the latest information on the charity and our partner projects!
In January this year, we welcomed six-year-old twins Mary and Abigail into Funsani Home. They were joined by 5-year-old Agatha in June. All three girls had a difficult start in life, but are doing very well now and received excellent grades in their most recent end of term school reports.
In February, our chairpersons Kwilole and Jos attended a successful hackathon session with Tableau, a leading visual analytics company, which is part of the Salesforce group. We are pleased to share the bespoke Zambia Country Diagnostic dashboard developed by Tableau for Funsani, as part of the hackathon session. This is available to view on our Insights page.
We faced a tough decision last year whether to continue to operate the charity after the first wave of children graduated from secondary school and university, but this data shows our support is as relevant and needed as ever.
On 26th March, we held our Annual General Meeting. During the meeting, we discussed financials, accomplishments, and learnings from the previous year. We're therefore pleased to have achieved the following milestones over the last year:
Recruited a Zambia Charity Board to provide local leadership and governance
Recruited a new manager to oversee the home with experience as a social worker and at other NGOs
Commenced welcoming a new wave of children into the home
In April we hosted another successful Funsani Easter raffle, raising an incredible £1,140.
The 'Chocoholic Feast' basket won by Sanjay was stuffed with chocolate and sweets from an array of wonderful, ethical chocolatiers. Whilst our 'Hygge Home' basket won by Becky, was full of candles, succulents and sprays for the home.
The Easter raffle will undoubtedly be back next year, so keep an eye on our social media channels and newsletter if you’d like to be in with a chance of winning!
In May our Deputy Chairperson, Jos and our Fundraising Manager, Katie ran the Copenhagen marathon, raising £1,570. This was followed by a birthday barbecue fundraiser in August, raising another £1,420.
The end of the summer was punctuated with another barbecue to celebrate our chairperson Kwilole’s birthday, which raised £870.
Keep an eye out for the following fundraising events between now and the end of the year
Dinner parties hosted by members of the Board
Christmas quiz
Baking our famous doggie / human Christmas biscuits
If you have any fundraising ideas to help us reach our £20k milestone, please get in touch and we would love to discuss how we can support you.
We are hoping to organise another trip to Zambia, taking place over 2 weeks between September and October 2023. This will be the first trip aimed at adults. To help us gauge interest (no commitment at this time), please fill out this form if this sounds like something you would like to do.
Previous trips have included:
Volunteering at Funsani and our partner school Maanu Mbwami
Canoeing on the Zambezi in Kiambi national park
Safari in Chobe national park in Botswana
Chimfunshi wildlife park
Donate
As ever, your generosity and kind donations are what keep the charity going.
If you would like to make a one-off or regular donation any time throughout the next year, please donate via our PayPal donation page!