News & Updates

Dedicated volunteer Amanda, not content with her fundraising efforts last year in Manchester, has taken he support for Livlife back to Seattle with her.

Along with a team of fellow students, Amanda will be hosting a charity fundraising night for Livlife in Seattle, USA.

So, if you're in the area on 10th May be sure to swing by to The College Pub Inn for a night of free entertainment and an all-night Happy Hour for those who donate!

Thank you Amanda!

30th June 2012, Thornbridge Hall, Derbyshire

It's that time of year again when Livlife ask you to take part in The Challenge and run, walk or skip a 10 or 4 km course, suitable for all ages, to help fundraise for Livlife.

The route takes you through some of the most scenic parts of the Peak District, after which you can relax in the grounds of Thornbridge Hall, the country home of Emma Harrison (Chair of the FSI).

If you would like join us, contact Kate@livlife.org for more details.

The last year has been hard on the villagers of Meserani. The lack of rain that has affected some areas of East Africa so severely has hit the region as the pressure of smaller than usual rains earlier in the year and the late arrival of the short rains in October began to tell.

However, with the skies steadily darkening and and a flash flood recently at the nearby Snake Park it seems we might be on course for some good rains at last. Despite this, at the Centre there has been steady improvement with numbers growing each term for the classes on offer.

Congratulations to the 230 students who passed their exams in December, and good luck to the 243 students registered this term!

Demand for places remains extremely high, with computer and English classes the most popular as ever. The tailoring course continues apace and hopes are high for the course next year.

In the kindergarten, new teachers Fathuma and Sofia have stepped in as if they have been there forever, assisting Naomi and continuing our tradition of finding teachers among our students. In and around kindergarten classes Nai’s daughter Esupat, now one and a half years old, can be seen joining in activities such as Yoga or sleeping in the play area. An enviable lifestyle…

Many, many thanks to Peter and Diane Swann and Specsavers (Stockton-on-Tees) for bringing out reading glasses for the pupils at the Centre.

The kind donation has meant that many students who were studying at the centre but struggling with their vision are now able to work in comfort. Sometimes it is the smaller things that make all the difference.

As the Centre’s Tailoring Students have progressed towards the end of their year long course year, the challenge would always be to translate hard work and learning into the production and sale of items.

Often such a translation relies on a little luck and a breakthrough into a market. So it came as a surprise, but a very welcome one, when towards the end of November an order was placed for 2,000 Christmas cracker hats by a hotel in London. Each was to be made from two types of kitenge (a local, colourful cloth) and all needed to be identical.

This presented a number of challenges new to the students. The ability to produce large quantities of items that were exact replicas of each other, all to a high standard and working in a production line- all to a deadline. The ten sewing machines were readied, and the students rose to the challenge. The first 1,000 were produced ahead of schedule and posted off to the UK for diligent volunteers to create Christmas crackers.

The hard work by the students has paid off, allowing them all to earn money as a result of their studies. Now approaching the end of their courses, some (such as Abraham, pictured here) have used the money to purchase their own machines while others will access the microfinance available to them at the end of the course…

The months of September and October saw extensive planning for the new Outreach in Ilkerin Village. Following the pioneering blueprint of the Meserani Juu Outreach, building started January after the (very) short rains had finished. Loishiye, the new manager, has already begun to register students for Literacy and Numeracy, English and Swahili classes; and teaching is taking place in the local village office.

Construction is well under way despite the early arrival of the long rains in February and both Ilkerin villagers and KCEM students have been helping with the build- a real community effort. Local homes have donated small shelters for storing materials and the village council is helping to provide trees for planting around the site.

With the opening provisionally scheduled for April 2012 expect further updates very soon…

The kindergarten and adult classes at the Outreach continue to grow. Literacy and Numeracy classes have groups of up to ten students, while the kindergarten has 30 children regularly attending. Attendances have been so good that a second kindergarten teacher, Nai, has been recruited; not before time either as our other teacher, Beatrice, recently gave birth to a lovely baby boy named Noel. Appropriate really, given he was born on December 21st…

Our first outreach centre has been blossoming since it opened about a year ago, thanks to the hard work of our manager Alex, his kindergarten teachers Beatrice and Nai and support from the main centre staff.

We always knew that women and children were the main targets for the project, since it was women who had told us, so many times, that they couldn't get up to the main centre, but they wanted to learn. Nonetheless, we never expected local women to take such speedy ownership of the place. Since we opened, a women's group has grown up organically and beautifully from the literacy classes and they now have a whopping 52 members!

They're working with Alex and our project manager David, shaping the content of what they do themselves. They've decided to take on a poultry project first, and they're working hard on it as you read this....(updated Feb 2012)

Nyangusi the gardener has been nurturing these trees with run-off from the roofs, and carefully monitored drought supplies for a couple of years now. He has the greenest fingers of anyone we've ever known. And its all paid off! Look! The kids sing a great song called 'Go bananas', I wonder if they've been singing it under the trees...Go bananas! b.a.n.a.n.a.s...(updated Feb 2012)

Welcome to the first of our series of updates on the progress of our new Outreach centre in Ilkerin Village, Tanzania. Back in August 2011 the villagers of Ilkerin donated an area of land to LivLife in order to build a small education outreach centre. I have lived in Ilkerin my whole life and before we were given the land I spent time in the village researching whether it would be possible to build an Outreach here, and it was clear there was a lot of interest. Having been given the land the next step was to spend time making it suitable for our purposes. I spent two weeks planting cactus fencing around our land, after which I then planted eighty trees on the land to cover the area and help prevent soil erosion. The villagers have provided fertilizer to help these trees grow, which is easy in an area where everyone has cows.

The land we were given has a gully running through part of it, which during the rains can fill up with water. The villagers have been giving their time to help redirect the water around our land by cutting terraces in the soil, as you can see from the picture. During this time I have been teaching small classes in an office provided by the Village Government and by the end of our first week we had 52 students registered! As well as this I have been taking care of the land by watering the plants and maintaining the fences, which is important if you do not want the goats to eat the trees you have planted.

We were finally able to begin building on the 20th of January, as we had been bringing all the materials to our site the week before. Our fundi (builder) Sakaya first spent two days digging the latrine pit and is now in the process of building the toilet structure. We hope that this will be finished soon and that we can begin building the classrooms by the 27th of January. We hope to have the whole Outreach completed by the 15th of March and at this point we would like to begin teaching Adult classes of Literacy, Numeracy, Reading and Writing. We hope to open the Kindergarten shortly after this, where the children will have access not only to teaching but also to a meal of maize each day.

I am excited because beginning the building work shows real progress and demonstrates to the village our commitment to the Outreach. This centre will really help the people around me where I have grown up to get better access to education. For myself, I know that this can help provide employment and enables a link between my people and others who may want to visit or village.

Of course this would not be possible without the support of those who sponsor our work from the UK. We are especially grateful to everyone who has made this possible. (Jan 2012)

This Christmas The Olde Bell, Stoke Place and The Crown are doing something special for some of their private dining customers. Rather than provide crackers they have decided to support LivLife by purchasing Christmas Crowns from our tailoring course to give to their guests over Christmas. The revenue generated from the three hotels combined will single-handedly run the tailoring course for 6 months.

Each one has a joke inside like any good cracker should and some information about where each hat came from.

A huge thank you to all the students at Henry Cavendish School in Balham who worked incredibly hard to bake and sell cakes to raise money for Livlife.

They raised an fantastic £246!

A huge thank you to all involved.

The FSI Challenge proved to be a fantastic day out for all. Set in beautiful Derbyshire, 30 individuals set out to run 10km for LivLife, followed by a picnic in the park. A huge thank you to everyone who came along to support LivLife and the FSI.

Annual Report

Our Annual Report for the period 1st December 2008 to 31st May 2010 has been published and is now available for viewing. Please click on the link below to download it.

30th June 2010: World Cup Mystery Solved!

The kids at the Centre, with a bit of help from LivLife, have put together their interpretation of why Frank Lampard's goal against Germany wasn't given.

The 2:45 minute clip stars Christopher as Frank Lampard, Akwi as the German keeper, Nai as Fabio Capello, Ibrahim as the referee, Salim as the linesman and Nasra and Upendo as the reporters (with a little help from Petro).

Take a look below...

26th April 2010 Blog: Meet the Staff...

Saturday was our most recent graduation day. As always, students gathered in to the classroom to receive their certificates. Nearly 200 students took the exams and over 100 more had had to postpone their studies so they could work on their farms when the rains came... Read more

21st April 2010: A New Way to Donate

We have a new, easier way to support LivLife! We have an account with Virgin Money Giving which gives us more flexibility on having regular and single donors, as well as allowing people an excellent online platform to do sponsored events for us. There's less admin charges too, and they claim gift aid back for us automatically.

Have a look at the page here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/charities/livlife

21st April 2010: Blog: Taking the Next Step

Last time I blogged (many moons ago…) I heralded the start of a new era at the Centre – one of an outreach programme breaking down the barriers for those who can’t get to the Centre. Next week we hope to see a new programme starting at the other end of the spectrum – a work experience scheme to help students who’ve been through our courses find work... Read more

29th March 2010: Blog: Snakes, no Ladders

Today heralded the start of a new era at the Centre. After two weeks research and a week’s preparation, our Outreach Officer, Alex, left the Centre this morning all packed up on his two-wheeled school for his first day teaching in the community... Read more

15th March 2010: Blog: Expeditions, Outreach & Goals

Hot on the heels of the successful Skype link-up, I’ve been showing round Rick this week, an old friend and outdoor pursuits teacher at Bolton School. The intention is to bring over a group of schoolchildren in 2011 to see what Africa… Read more

8th March 2010: LivLife Quarterly Issue 4

The latest edition of the LivLife Quarterly is now out! We’ve got features about the Centre manager, Nai and our new outreach programme in addition to a host of other news and updates… Read it here

3rd March 2010: Blog: Skyping the Maasai!

Got to love it when technology works and something you’ve worked very hard for is actually a spectacular success. One of my aims of the year is to develop our schools linking programme… Read more

19th February 2010: Blog: Continuing Well…

Sat down round the back of the Centre (see photo) typing my blog. I’ve got the sounds of the literacy class behind me, the computer teacher instructing on the use of Excel to my left, the chattering of the kids as they draw each other… Read more

14th February 2010: Blog: Getting Going…

It’s been a busy busy week… In fact Monday seems so long ago it feels like I’ve been back in Tanzania a month rather than a week… Read more

7th February 2010: Blog: Rain, Packed classes and baby elephants

Arrived back in Tanzania on Friday morning and it’s been a busy first couple of days… Got my tent up without too much trouble, although it’s failure to stand up to the afternoon thunderstorm… Read more here

1st February 2010: Blog: Back to the ground

Back to Tanzania on Thursday after 6 weeks in the UK. Can’t wait. Managed to make some excellent progress in the past month and a half… Read more here

23rd December 2009: Follow Max’s Vodafone Blog

As a winner on the Vodafone World of Difference Programme, Max is keeping a LivLife blog at http://worldofdifference.vodafone.co.uk/international/max-griffiths/. Have a read of it and follow our progress over the coming 12 months…

30th November 2010: LivLife Quarterly Issue 3

Issue 3 of the LivLife Quarterly can now be downloaded here. Read the story of Babu, see how the weather is wreaking havoc in Meserani and hear how Vodafone are helping us make the World of Difference.

18th September 2009: Making the World of Difference
We're delighted to announce that we are one of the winners of the Vodafone World of Difference programme 2009. This means that Max Griffiths, who together with Sam Yates founded LivLife, will become the full-time Director of LivLife for the next 12 months.

This will let us put many of our ideas into practice. Amongst other things we will introduce textile classes, health workshops, renewable energy and make plans for a second LivLife Centre.... There's more details on the link below. Download the Livlife 12 month plan

Thank you to everyone who voted for us. The support we received was truly staggering and incredibly encouraging. It's exciting times here at LivLife...

31st August 2009: LivLife Quarterly Issue 2

The second edition of our LivLife Quarterly focuses on the younger end of our members. There’s a chance to learn more about the kindergarten and read the story of Neema, our excellent kids teacher. Read it here

28th May 2009: LivLife Quarterly Issue 1

We are very proud to present the first edition of the LivLife Quarterly, the emag for LivLife supporters. Read about our ideas, thoughts and some of our success stories already. Plus, there’s a recipe for authentic Tanzanian tea! Download it here