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On Saturday morning Suzie_Q and I were up early for the Biennial African Child Trust supporters’ meeting, this year taking place at Croydon’s Whitgift School. It’s not often you find pink flamingos on school grounds, but rather apt for a meeting to discuss child poverty and education in Africa. Held in one of the school’s many fine meeting rooms (kindly paid for by Christian Aid) there were perhaps some seventy five ACT supporters in attendance; an array of cultural backgrounds on show - from me in my shirt and trousers to those in traditional African dress - including one aid worker ’Constantin Ouedraogo’ flown in all the way from Burkina Faso.

ACT is run by Kunle Onabolu (pictured); a Nigerian engineer with a very big heart and a strong willingness to do the work of god in Africa. Kunle doesn’t like to take applause for the huge impact his efforts with ACT have had to date - but he gets them anyway. Kunle’s honest passion and devotion are clear to all those who meet him. In seven years he has taken ACT to an annual income of £85,000 a year, supporting over 375 children and 90 widows across Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. When you listen to Kunle you can’t help but feel guilty about the amount of time you yourself give to help others, that’s probably what makes him such a great candidate to run a charity like ACT.

I got involved with ACT just over two years ago and have been hosting and updating their website for free ever since; optimising their pre-existing site, making monthly updates and putting together an entirely new site with Suzie_Q - complete with CMS. I may blog about the rigors of my life, but on the scale of things I really have nothing to complain about in comparison to the poverty stricken across Africa. 

I’ve always believed that education is the key to solving many of the issues in Africa, dropping food parcels from planes under the watchful eye of the UK media is all well and good, but that only serves a short term purpose. It’s tremendously unfair that in many African countries schooling has to be paid for - as if there weren’t enough things to worry about already. That’s why I sought out ACT and volunteered my own skills to assist them in their growth - the charity pays for the education of orphaned children and the support of widows - from financial aid to work skills training. It’s easy enough to donate £15 a month to a charity, but when I consider the cost saving to ACT from the use my own skills in web development it’s a much more significant a contribution and more rewarding… they’re always looking for more volunteers!

As well as a general overview of the past two year’s charity activity and a brief review of the financials there were speakers from the Zambian High Commission and as mentioned above - Constantin Ouedraogo. Constantin was quite a character, a native French speaker, he apologised for his English in advance of his presentation - but there really was no need. Constantin is involved in the administration of funds to the needy in Burkina Faso, his ability to tell first hand stories about the treatment of widows by neighbours and family following the loss of a husband was a real eye-opener. It was absolutely clear that the support of a single child in a family by ACT had a positive knock-on effect not only on the family unit but the local community as a whole. Supported orphaned children and widows are able to start over again despite the loss of a husband’s income, and hold their heads high.

The new ACT website is due to be launched within a week or so, I dare say I’ll manage a blog entry when it goes live. In the meantime please use the ‘Everyclick’ banners on this website to search the web and purchase goods from Amazon - all clicks are already configured to support the African Child Trust. Alternatively if I’ve managed to inspire you, make a secure donation online now and improve your Karma

Technorati Tags: african charity, african education, poverty in africa, hiv in africa

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