On behalf of The Butterfly Tree I am delighted to present our Annual Report and Accounts for 2023-24. Please click on the link below to view or download the full report, the accounts, images and graphs.

Chairman’s Report

I am delighted to present to you The Butterfly Tree’s 2023-2024 Annual Report and Accounts. This has been the second most successful year since the founding of the charity in 2006. More schools have been developed. Both Riverview and Musokotwane Secondary schools are undergoing expansion after members of The Murphy Family Foundation joined me in Zambia to see firsthand how we are spending their donations. Both schools received funding to build additional 1×3 classroom blocks and to supply computers for their sciences labs. A new secondary school in Nguba is being built, this will be the fifth of its kind implemented by the charity. A 1×2 classroom block was completed for Katubya Community school in Musokotwane to replace the mud and pole construction. Bbombe Lyangoma, another community school, is to receive a 1×2 classroom block, toilets and a teacher’s house. Once we have completed the infrastructure for schools, we hand them over to the Ministry of Education who provide trained teachers and the ongoing costs.

The orphan sponsorship progamme funds the educational needs of orphans and vulnerable children, many live in extreme poverty and being looked after by their elderly grandparents. Though the government recently abolished school fees these are only a fraction of the costs. Money is needed to buy school uniforms, shoes, bags, books and for exams, and other school expenses. This programme has helped to transform the lives of thousands of young people. In addition, we are currently sponsoring ten students at universities and colleges. Seven former sponsored pupils after undergoing extensive training have been enrolled into the army, one as a junior officer.

We continue to support children with special needs, three units built by The Butterfly Tree received donations for materials and equipment. A young amputee, under our sponsorship programme, won three awards at Riverview’s prize-giving ceremony, passed grade her grade nine exams, and was offered a place at Kazungula Boarding school. We initiated a worthwhile project entitled ‘Empowering Young People with Physical and Mental Health Challenges.’ This comprises of chicken rearing in Mukuni, and goat rearing in Kamwi and Ngandu to provide a sustainable income-generating enterprise for these vulnerable young people.

A new health post was developed in Mabwa, a remote area of Nyawa. This included the construction of a clinic, two staff houses, toilets, a biodigester for waste, and a borehole. The facility was fully equipped, and solar power was installed. As this area has a high prevalence of malaria, we donated mosquito nets to the schools in the vicinity and also to Kauwe zone.  Our ‘mosquito nets for schools’ project is proving to be highly effective in reducing the number of malaria cases.

In March this year the President declared a state of Disaster and Emergency as a result of a severe drought predominantly caused by El Niño. The poor rainy season and extreme heat caused crops to perish and vegetable gardens to wilt. Most of the income in rural villages is generated from subsistence farming, which also provides food for households. The water situation is dire, I have never seen the Zambezi River so low in April. This is the time of year when an abundance of water cascades over the mighty Victoria Falls. Knowing that no rain was expected until October it painted a concerning picture. To provide help to schools and communities that rely on streams and rivers for drinking water The Butterfly Tree drilled eight boreholes. It is imperative that we install more, without water no life can survive. Thanks to receiving four substantial donations twelve more drills are scheduled for the coming months.

The drought has obviously had an impact on the women’s food security projects, and we are doing everything we can to support them. We are including these women in our distributions of ground maize which we provide for those most in need, especially orphans and the elderly who have no source of income. We have implemented four more sustainable food security projects at Siambalele, Musokotwane, Mukuni and Senkobo to assist with the food shortages and to provide income generation. All have solar-powered water reticulation systems.

I am so impressed with our trained peer educators and participated in one of their workshops in Kauwe. The zone recorded a high number of teenage pregnancies in 2023. The peer educators who were on our orphan sponsorship and have now completed school educate pupils about the dangers of HIV, teenage pregnancies, early marriages and drug and alcohol abuse. The workshops allow pupils to be open and talk about their problems. One school reported a reduction of teenage pregnancies from seven in 2022 to only one in 2023.

Sport keeps young people occupied and prevents them getting into of trouble. We sponsored football tournaments and provided kits for school teams. Two of our Zambian trustees were hosted by the organisers of the Blackpool Cup, an annual event for European school football teams. Martin and Mupotola travelled from Zambia to Blackpool and had a wonderful time watching the school matches and going to Liverpool’s stadium, as well as being taken to a premier league match and site seeing around the area.

We were honoured to receive two further awards during the 2023-24 period. We were chosen as the International Support Organisation of the Year for the 2024 Innovation and Excellence Global Awards. In addition, The Butterfly Tree was the winner of the Youth Education Nonprofit Organisation of the Year for London and the South-East of England. These awards give our work in Zambia more exposure, help to create awareness and give a boost to our teams in the UK and Zambia.

Its hard to believe that The Butterfly Tree has been operating since 2006. Though we work only in the Southern Province of Zambia we are making a substantial impact, and we are the biggest contributors to education in the Kazungula District. It covers an area of 16,835 km² and is the largest district in the province. Compared to other Provinces the south was neglected. Most of the projects we support are in remote areas that get very little aid from anywhere else. We also have several projects in the rural areas of the Livingstone Districts. Our aim is continue developing more education and health facilities and to provide clean water and food security for orphans and vulnerable people. 

Last year The Butterfly Tree registered as a Charity Incorporated Organisation – the benefits of being a corporate body is that we need only to comply with one set of laws, charity law, and only one regulator, the Charity Commission. Therefore in 2025 we will be changing everything over to the CIO. Nothing will change, except for the bank account as the bank states that a new account must be opened. For those who donate monthly, we will give you advanced warning.

As always, I am grateful to my fellow trustees Ann, Jackie, and Victoria who joined the Butterfly Tree earlier this year, for their invaluable help with accounting, safeguarding and fundraising. Anthony resigned as a trustee in February due to other commitments but will remain an avid supporter of the charity. Many thanks also to volunteers David, Carolyn, Valerie and Steven for giving up their free time to help with IT, fundraising and youth projects, and to Frank Maiolo, our US representative. Our Trustees in Zambia are the ones who implement, manage and monitor all our projects on the ground. Mupotola Siloka (secretary), Rev. Presley Mulenga (education), Martin Mushabati (project management/sport) and Stain Musungaila (malaria prevention and community projects). Each of them has volunteered for the charity prior to and since the registration of the NGO in 2007. Also, thanks to our Zambian volunteers who manage a variety of programmes. Natasha Mufeya, (orphan sponsorship/peer education/girls’ empowerment), Mafian Sitali (orphan sponsorship) and Lloyd Kasela (community projects, Nyawa). All our members both in the UK and Zambia are volunteers and are committed to helping young people to change their lives for the better.

Jane Kaye-Bailey

Founder

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I have just returned from Zambia after a three-week trip to check on the orphans, the schools we are building, and to see first-hand the impact that the severe drought, caused by El Niño is having on rural communities. Our priority, as always, is to ensure that the orphans and vulnerable children on our orphan support programme have sufficient food, and to check on their progress.

The first trip was to visit Ngandu primary school where we have been focusing on reducing the number of teenage pregnancies and providing extra textbooks. Far too often I see pupils learning solely from a blackboard instead of having their own textbooks, which are essential for homework and exam revision. The testimonial below is from Edwin Sililo, Head Teacher, Ngandu Primary.

‘The pupil-book ratio has tremendously improved to 2 pupils to 1textbook. Self-research and discovery methods using new textbooks. Additionally, the books added to the value of quality education.’ ‘As regards pregnancies – Peer education workshops were conducted, the prevalence of teenage pregnancies among girls was high. With the peer lessons initiated by The Butterfly Tree among girl children, this year 2023, the school has only recorded one pregnancy. They also helped girls and boys from the risk of contracting sexual transmitted diseases.’ Make a Medic, a UK charity provided funds for the peer education workshops and for the provision of textbooks.

A new primary school at Bbombe Lyangoma will open at the start of the school year in January 2025. A 1×2 classroom block and toilets have been completed and the facility will shortly have a teacher’s house. A teacher’s flat at Singwamba Primary school is currently under construction, which is desperately needed as most teachers leave the school due to distance and lack of accommodation. I drove 360km, of which 120km was off-road, to reach the school where we received a wonderful welcome from pupils, the choir, and traditional dancers.

At Kamwi Primary school I caught up with Elvis and Vincent. Celebrating their 14th birthday last month, the ‘Kamwi twins’, they are now in grade 7. Sadly, their mother and sister died during childbirth. Since 2010 The Butterfly Tree has sponsored the welfare and education of these vulnerable boys who are looked after by their grandmother.

I also visited three of the secondary schools developed by the charity, Mukuni, Musokotwane and Riverview. Pupils are preparing for their examinations including grade 12, after which they will have completed their education. More schools have received boreholes (wells) this year due to the drought. These include Kamusiku, Katondo, Manono, Masmu Muyumu, Siamuya, Sianjangulu, Luwe, Muule, Service Centre and Mulindi Primary and Community schools, and the newly constructed secondary school at Nguba.

The impact of the severe drought was apparent everywhere I travelled, especially in the rural areas where communities are subsistence farmers, relying on home grown food and income-generation from selling crops and vegetables. I drove to four areas where we were distributing 25kg bags of ground maize in Musokotwane, Sekute and Mukuni Chiefdom. One of our local volunteers organised the distributions for Nyawa and Moomba.

In 2019 I saw the water and food shortages when Zambia was suffering from a drought, but nothing can compare with the one that is happening this year. I have never seen the Zambezi River so low, not the Victoria Falls so dry. In Livingstone people are hard-hit with the reduction of power but they have access to food and water. Whereas in the villages people have no food other than wild fruits and are having to walk long distances in search of water.

We have installed 27 boreholes this year with a further five scheduled for next week, including Mukamba village, in Nyawa where I stopped to take a look at a well where children and teenagers were getting water. I was horrified to see a girl precariously balancing on a log while filling a bucket with murky water. This is their only source of drinking water.

The good news is that El Niño, deemed to be the fifth worst in history, has now ended and with the rainy season imminent it is predicted that is will be plentiful!

The support we have received this year, especially from the Overseas Aid and Development Commission of Guernsey, Nick Bousliman, Give a Hand and the Murphy Family Foundation, has been truly amazing and has enabled us to reach out to more rural areas where there are orphans and vulnerable children, and to provide emergency food relief, food security and the provision of clean water.

Jane Kaye-Bailey

Founder

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