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Latest News: Out of Afrika Progress Report - June 2008

In keeping with our general ethos of putting people first, we decided in 2005 to commit ourselves to a particular charity project. Several years ago a friend and colleague had a holiday in Africa. As he was travelling around the country he visited a local primary school which was primitive to say the least. Outside the school some children were playing football, but on closer inspection it turned out that the children were improvising with a "ball" made out of leaves tied together in a bundle. Our friend, fascinated by the innovation of these children and the contrast with a similar scene at home, stopped for a while to watch and chat to them. He asked them if they could have anything for their school what would it be? The answer was a football!

The pure simplicity of this request sparked a lasting interest and as a result we in Edwards and Co. have embarked on our project - building a college in the Thika province in Kenya through a small charity known as Out of Afrika. The cost of the building will be in the region of £48,000. In Northern Irish terms this is a ridiculously small sum of money to build a school. The equivalent cost here for an average primary school would be £2m. Nonetheless, the £48,000 will require some fund-raising and some major team effort.

Fund-raising has ranged from weekly efforts such as home baking and raffles. The biggest event so far has been the 5k Fun-run which took place in May 2006. As you'll see from the photos below, the event was well attended, despite the inclement weather and we raised over £5,000

In June we had a Pimms & Popcorn night at a local cinema which was also well attended, raising around £1000 and in November a drinks party for clients and colleagues, kindly hosted by our neighbours, Nick's Warehouse, raised £3,000.

Our staff are also committed to Payroll Giving, a government tax free scheme for charity donations taken directly from salary.

At the time of writing we have raised almost £37,000! When the college is built we will continue to support salaries, maintenance costs, etc.

If you would like to make a donation to this excellent cause, please send cheques to our office address, made payable to Out Of Afrika. You can also find out more details about the charity at its own website - www.outofafrika.org.