St Paul’s Church in Manuka, along with Radford College, have teamed up with the children from the rural village of Matumbulu in Tanzania to create a wall calendar for 2014.
Sales of this Calendar will help children in Tanzania get the chance to go to school.
The calendar is launching this Sunday (2nd of November) at St Paul’s Fete.
All proceeds from sales of the calendar will go to The Carpenter’s Kids Program, which ensures that Tanzanian children whose parents have mostly died of HIV/AIDS-related illnesses can attend school, by providing uniforms, school supplies and other support for a year. Although primary schools are free in Tanzania, without uniforms children can not enrol. The program also gives them breakfast on school days, emergency health care, counselling and support. Overseas Anglican parishes in the US, UK, New Zealand, and in Australia St Paul’s Manuka, provide the funding for the program. The Friends of Carpenter’s Kids group in Canberra now includes supporters from across Canberra and various faith communities.
St Paul’s has supported 50 Carpenter’s Kids since 2008 in Matumbulu, and recently promised to continue this support for another five years.
Children at Radford and in Matumbulu drew what was important to them to share with the other children, and their drawings vividly illustrate the calendar. It is bilingual and will be used in Tanzania as well as Australia. Each participant Carpenter’s Kid has received a colour copy of a drawing done by one of the Radford children, as a memento of the link established between the groups of children. Radford children will also receive a copy of one of the Carpenter’s Kids drawings and will hear the story of how the Carpenter’s Kids did their drawings and how they live in Matumbulu from two members of the parish, Catherine and Les Bohm, who recently visited Matumbulu at their own expense for the annual distribution of uniforms, school supplies and gifts from Canberra.
