Our aim for 2024 was to raise the profile of the charity in order to attract additional funds and thereby to extend the scope of the work we can do with our trusted partners overseas. On that basis it has been a very successful year. Already in 2024, with the help of some generous match funding, we have been able to allocate approximately £50,000 to 8 different projects in 7 different countries (Malawi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania and Bangladesh). At the AGM we allocated a further £28,000 to 2 additional projects in Nepal and Zambia. This represents a significant upturn in the total amount of money we have been able to distribute but our mission and our ethos remain the same. Our work continues to be focused on projects addressing basic needs in the least developed countries of the world and as always it has been extremely varied including projects in maternal and child health, special needs education, primary healthcare and WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene). Thanks go to all the Guernsey Aid Committee members for their continued support with a particular mention for Peter Keeling who works tirelessly as our Treasurer. The aim for 2025 is to ensure that the projects we already have in the pipeline are successfully completed and to further raise the profile of the charity in order to attract sufficient funds to continue to support our trusted partners overseas.
At the end of September Claudine and Nick visited the remote secondary school in eastern Zimbabwe where Guernsey Aid has helped to provide a solar powered borehole (see photo). The borehole is now supplying clean water not just to the school but also to the surrounding community and as always it was humbling to see how a relatively small sum of money can make such a huge difference to people’s lives.
Project work in 2024 (see photos in the gallery below)
1) The Children’s Ward and SCBU at St Francis Hospital in Katete, Zambia where we have again continued our participation in the bed sponsorship scheme.
2) Water, sanitation and hygiene project in 15 ethnic minority schools in Cambodia. Match funding from a local Trust has enabled us to make a grant of £30,000 to upgrade the WASH facilities in no less than 15 remote schools in Ratanikiri and Mondulkiri Provinces, NE Cambodia in partnership with the Cambodia office of United World Schools. Over 1300 children have benefited including those at Chak Chap School, which we built in 2022. The project should be completed by the end of the year.
3) The Jibon Tari Floating Hospital in Bangladesh, the Zanzibar Outreach Programme in Tanzania and the Tonle Sap Lake Clinic in Cambodia. Through our close relationship with Impact UK we have once again made a contribution towards the excellent work done by all three of these trusted in-country partners.
4) New maternity unit at Sitima Health Clinic, Malawi. With match funding from GOADC we have been able to provide a grant to cover the £15,000 cost of fully equipping a brand new maternity unit at this rural health clinic near Zomba.
5) New borehole in Chinhenga village, Zimbabwe. In conjunction with the Guernsey Circle of the Catenian Association we helped to provide St Paul’s Secondary School and the surrounding community with a brand new solar powered borehole and as referred to above, Claudine and Nick visited the village in September and were made extremely welcome. Hopefully we will be able to offer further support to the school in future.
6) New nursery unit at St Felix School, Ntenefor Village, Bamenda, Cameroon. Our link to the Parish of Our Lady and the Saints of Guernsey has enabled us to support a project that will provide two brand new nursery classrooms and an associated toilet block at St Felix School in Ntenefor Village near Bamenda. The help from Guernsey Aid will ensure that the project can be started without further delay and more photos will be posted as the building work progresses.
Guernsey Aid 