Tools For Self Reliance
Container No 9 Arrives in Mwanza

The good news is that our container arrived in Dar es Salaam in the first week of August.  It reached Tanga the week after and was swiftly unloaded – that’s 55 sewing machines and 11 tool kits with Dickson on the right. Blue means kits for Tanga – Pink boxes are for Singida.
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Early last week the container arrived in Mwanza and we had this message from Emmanuel the Technical Officer:  “Wow !!!!  We have received the container a few hours ago, it was fully loaded and it reach Mwanza intact”.

Now it will be all systems go, as the workshop staff have plenty of requests to fulfill in the coming weeks – more news of these next time.

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Wednesdays Group
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Tea break in our Crickhowell workshop – it’s not so easy to get some volunteers to stop work. That’s some of our Fair Trade adzes in Andrew and Dave’s hands.

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That Group from Last Month
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Itileli Msiba and his family of 6 comprise this group of blacksmiths in Malegea Village on Ukerewe Island.  They received their tool kit, and training from Saidi Maguta our SIDO blacksmith. Their main products are adzes and billhooks.
Ukerewe (known locally as UK Island) is a large island in Lake Victoria 3 or 4 hours away from Mwanza by ferry and quite under-developed.  The island grows a lot of bananas, and the fishermen produce annually hundreds of tons of tiny dried fish known as Dagaa, which are hauled across Tanzania in those giant trucks.
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At the Green Man again

One of our fantastic visitors at the Green Man Festival proudly taking part in a blacksmithing workshop.  We are helping in our own very small way to train blacksmiths across the World!  Who knows what they will go on to make?
We had a very successful Green Man Festival – it happens right in our own back yard.This year we have been to an unprecedented number of events – festivals, seed swaps, and shows.  All this helps us spread the word about our work, brings in more tools and financial donations, and of course raises money to keep the whole show on the road.
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Billhooks .
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Billhooks made by Ikulwa blacksmiths near Geita in Lake Zone. They send the blades, we fix the handles – next time they should be handled in the Mwanza workshop.
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We are about to send a fabricator to Mwanza, to learn how to make treadle bases for the hand sewing machines we send. This is the first time we haven’t sent any treadle machines in our container. At present, tailors groups in Singida are able to buy a treadle base for their hand machines; bases are made in Mwanza. After this training we will have a source of treadle bases in Tanga as well. Watch this space for more news on this.
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That’s all till next month . . .