I have just returned from Zambia and yet again I am amazed by the resilience and spirit of these humble people. I have many stories to tell but I think the most touching of them all is the one about how an elderly man provides for his family. While driving through the bush I asked my husband to pull over and offer a lift to an old man baring two heavy sacks, tied to a pole, which he placed across his shoulders. I learnt that Davison Simolonga grew vegetables in Chise Village and then carried his sixty kilo load for twenty miles, twice a week, to Livingstone collecting just £6.50 per load. It was totally inhumane – he is 76 years of age! I offered him a donkey, the opportunity to provide The Butterfly Tree feeding program at Mukuni Basic School, a short distance from his home and to sponsor two of the children.

The orphan sponsorship has increased to 130. This program is vital to enable the orphans to complete their education. The high school, almost at the end of the second year, is expanding; currently we are rasing funds to add a science laboratory. We have plans to restore another classroom at Ngandu School. I drove to several very remote villages to discover that some children actually leave home at 5am to arrive for classes at Mukuni for 8am – the temperatures reach 40 degrees during October!

 
          New teachers’ house                                    Under-fives’ feeding progam

Two teachers and their families are happlily residing in the new accomodation we have built. The community housing project is increasing, a young disabled wood carver who sleeps in an open shelter, has been given priority for the next house before the start of the rainy season. Many old people cannot even afford the £10 needed to re thatch their roof, having lost their children through AIDS, there is no one to help them. The two projects we are running for HIV/AIDS are continuing to make a difference, many more women are coming forward tested and ones who are HIV positive can receive the formaula to replace breastfeeding through our under five’s feeding program.

 
           Children in Chise Village                       Drinking water for Kafakwa

Once again Saga Charitable Trust, has given us substantial funding to assist the health facilities at Mukuni Clinic. We have started a project to imrove Katapazi Clinic, some 30 miles from Mukuni and the funding has been approved for three further bore holes from Just a Drop. Both Katapazi and Siamasimbi Schools are benefitting from our support, as are some twenty villages in the Mukuni Chiefdom. The website is attracting donors and volunteers from all parts of the globe: two nurses, a special needs teacher and a law graduate have been working at the school and health centre this summer.

Tourists, particularly from the UK and the USA, who have visited Mukuni Village, have boosted our funds offering generous donations after seeing first hand the need and the work of The Butterfly Tree. In Zambia we have support from Sun International, Stanley Safari Lodge, Safpar and SATS tour operator as well as the on going support from Exquisite Safaris who send philanthropic travellers to Mukuni Village. We have received a vast number of donated items from companies and individuals, there are far too many to name. Thank you once again to everyone who has supported The Butterfly Tree in any way – every little helps!

Jane Kaye-Bailey – Charity Founder

The Butterfly Tree has had an extremely successful year raising donations through grants, corporate and indivduals; the number of tourists who visit Mukuni Village has also boosted the funds. To view our annual report and accounts visit – click here

Much of the success is down to two factors: 100% of all donations raised go directly to the cause and all our members both in the UK and at Mukuni are volunteers. I especially wish to thank the Zambian team, all have full time jobs in the village, who give up their free time to administer the projects. Although the majority of the funds are raised in the UK, without the support of The Butterfly Tree in Zambia, we would not be able to accomplish so much.

Young Mukuni boy at The Butterfly Tree pre-school

It is difficult to single out any individuals but the following deserve a mention, Cunninghams for their ongoing support of the feeding program at Mukuni Basic school, Gardiff for continual sponsorship of the pre school, Saga Charitable Trust for their donations to the Mukuni Health Centre, BFSS for their grant to equip the high school, KTCT for the funding of the Mukuni Maternity Clinic, Just a Drop who are funding our bore holes and TME for the HIV/AIDS educational DVDs.

Working with Exquisite Safaris to promote Philanthropic Travel and responsible tourism has brought interest to our work from the US; speaking at the Global Luxury Forum and the World Travel Market in 2007 enabled me enrol more members of the tourist industry in the fight against world poverty.

However much more needs to be done, we need to increase our orphan sponsorship program, not just at Mukuni but other rural schools, unfortunately the stastistics of HIV/AIDS are not declining with 710,000 children orphaned through this devastating disease, we are seeking more of you to sponsor a child. We need funding for additional classrooms, teachers’ houses and feeding programs for remote schools, safe water and community housing besides further improving the facilties at Mukuni Health Centre and other rural clinics.

Finally a special thank you to Juggle Frogs for donating and hosting this inspiring website.

I am delighted to announce that The Butterfly Tree charity has been short listed for the prestigious Charity Times Awards. This is a tremendous achievement as the judges commended the high calibre of entries in this year’s Awards. These Awards acknowledge and encourage best practice in the management of charities and not-for-profit organisations.

The Butterfly Tree has been shortlisted for the Best New Charity, awarded to an organisation that has made a demonstrable impact since its foundation, achieved both awareness of itself and its cause, and set the foundations of excellent management and accountability in place since 1st January 2006.

Jane Kaye-Bailey Founder & Chairman of The Butterfly Tree

I would like to thank all the team members both here and especially in Mukuni Village for their hard work, dedication and commitment. We are all volunteers enabling 100% of all donations to go directly to the cause.

The Charity Times Awards winner will be announced at the awards ceremony held on 18 September 2008 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London.

With the successful Beijing Olympics, costing over £20 billion to stage, finally over, it is truly amazing to see the likes of Kenya and Jamaica in thirteenth and fifteenth place respectively on the medal table. Both extremely poor countries and yet they have produced many of the finest and fastest record-breaking runners on earth. 

During my last trip to Zambia I was lucky enough to experience the annual Sports Events for the Mukuni Chiefdom. Knowing how much is spent on sport in the west it is hard to believe that only four out of the twelve schools in the chiefdom turned up. The reason being that most of the schools could not afford the £25 affiliation fee and out of the four that attended The Butterfly Tree paid for Mukuni and Ngandu School who had failed to raise the funds. 

Photo: Mukuni Olympians

Sport is such an important part of a school’s curriculum and when I saw the effort these children had made to hold this event it was a very humbling experience. Despite the charity funding two mini buses and paying for food supplies many pupils still had to walk ten miles to the grounds, camping out on the floor of a classroom. Zanox kindly donated over 30 footballs which I distributed amongst the local teams. When I visit these remote villages of the Mukuni chiefdom and see the school teams using ‘bag and string’ footballs I am horrified to think of how much is spent on football in the UK. No expensive Nike or Addidas football boots; just bare feet, a patch of dirt and a couple of stakes at each end of the pitch.

With your funds we can provide improved sporting facilities, hard-wearing footballs and netballs complete with HIV/AIDS and malaria awareness logos for as little as £8.

President Mwanawasa passed away today in a Paris hospital, aged 59. Vice-President Rupiah Banda, who I personally met in February, is expected to be announced as the acting leader. He is a close friend of Chief Mukuni and I was invited to meet him during his visit to Mukuni Village. President Mwanawasa was renowned for his integrity and his fight against corruption and most recently for strongly criticizing Zimbabwe’s violent election campaign. This is a great loss to the people of Zambia.

President Mwanawasa (photo courtesy of Daylife)