We celebrated the 10th anniversary of the opening in September 1999 of our new Zawadi School building with a tremendous party at Battersea Arts Centre on September 22nd. We were delighted to have our Tanzanian Co-Founder and Director, Felistas Kalomo here with us. She was accompanied by the head teacher of the Zawadi School, Helena Mahidi and we also invited Felistas’ daughter Flora Losindilo Mzee to join in the celebrations. Among many distinguished guests we were honoured to welcome Her Excellency Mwanaidi Sinare Maajar, Tanzanian High Commissioner.

We were amazed and delighted to have an astonishing 276 people at the event and the wonderful music of the band Kasai Masai from East Africa contributed to a very lively and joyous occasion. They followed a beautiful and moving performance of unaccompanied singing by Felistas, Helena and Flora. Before the festivities really started Felistas was pleased to be able to address and thank some of the people who contributed money to the rebuilding of her house following the devastating fire in 2007 in which she lost her son and house boy.

Our textile stall proved to be very popular and we also had a superb raffle. Our very grateful thanks go to the donors of the extremely generous prizes who contributed in no small way to the success of the evening. Many people have supported the Charity since fund-raising first began in 1998 and we are thankful so many of these supporters came to the party, bringing such a warm and happy atmosphere with them. Thank you to all who came.

Whilst in the UK our Tanzanian guests made visits to The Dominie School, who enabled us through their fundraising in 2006 to open a third classroom at the Zawadi School, and Newton Prep School which has been donating copious quantities of school uniform for several years. Helena Mahidi was extremely interested to see some of the methods with which children in the UK are taught and both schools made a tremendous effort to show them as much as possible. We also went to the Tanzanian High Commission for talks with the High Commissioner and some of her staff.

Once again we have to thank British Airways for their generous sponsorship of the Changarawe Project with the donation of 4 return tickets between London and Dar es Salaam, enabling us to bring Felistas and Helena here together. It was the first time that Helena and Flora had left their country and they enjoyed The London Eye and the Victoria and Albert Museum while they were here as well as experiencing the Tube and the view from the top of double decker buses.