How the Friends began

We have been using Gift Cards to raise money for MRCH. This year we raised a total of £400. In previous years we have raised as much as £700! This year, some of the gifts were gift-aided which will add about £90.00 to the overall total. This has involved a bit more administrative work for me to do, but well worth it for the additional money. We have provided a choice of gift cards in £5, £10 and £20 denominations stating on each card roughly what the money would buy (e.g. £5 for school shoes and shoe-laces; £10 towards a month's medication for a child with HIV; £20 towards equipment for refurbishing the crèche). It's been well worth the effort. In comparison with other fundraising efforts, it's not very labour intensive. To offer Gift Cards just involves printing off them (we used the template from the MRCH website this year) and then taking orders and keeping track of the gift aid. If anyone would like to do this at their Church or work-place next year, I would be happy to help or forward on the templates we have developed. You can contact me via the Chairman. One bit of advice would be to start early! E.g. end of November for Christmas - I was a bit late this year and it made it a bit frantic! The Gift Cards can also be used for one-off gifts for special occasions - for example, my Gran recently celebrated her 100th Birthday and was given over £200 which she decided to donate to MRCH. It was nice to be able to create a presentable Gift Card to give to her.

Astonishment and Bridgety sent us reports following their fundraising visit to the UK in July 2005.

Mandy's visit to the Home in September 2005

UK reports from Astonishment Mapurisa's visit - July 2005

Thoughts from the children

A visitor on a business trip to MRCH in June 2005 made the following observations: "There seems to be an air of depression about the situation as well as uncertainty created by the clearance programme. The fuel situation is awful, people waiting in queues overnight, or for 7-8 hour stretches during the day, mostly unsuccessful. Shortages worse than ever, so MRCH is affected as well. They have had to stop the chicken programme because they can't get the feed - hence no eggs for sale or for the children to eat. Pig breeding has also stopped and slowly the pigs are being sold off. The garden remains the only sustainability project in operation. And so..... money from overseas is critical to their survival in the short, medium and long term"

York Fundraiser: "On Saturday 28th May 2005 over 100 supporters of MRCH gathered in the beautiful 15th Century Merchant Taylor's Hall in York for a black tie dinner/dance, a great opportunity to get dressed up and raise money for the Home. People travelled from far a field, even as far as Kent, to support the event which was a huge success. Almost £5000 was raised in a variety of ways! In between courses there were items auctioned, these included: a Tottenham shirt signed by England star Teddy Sherringham; Boxing gloves signed by over 20 former British boxing champions including Henry Copper; an England rugby shirt signed by England international stars Jason Leonard, Tim Rodber and Micky Skinner. There were also raffle prizes, all of which had been most generously donated for the event. After dinner there was a disco in an adjacent room and the music was kept at a reasonable volume especially for those of us who weren't as fit as others! This was a truly excellent evening of fun and fundraising for MRCH - A big thank you to all involved"

There has been no Government help for the Home since 2002. The Friends of MRCH now contribute approximately 80% of the daily running costs of the Home.