28 August - Our First Social Event - fantastic result!

A first Fund Raising Event for a small Charity is always a nail-biting affair wondering if it will be a success or not. Well, Educating Others' first event surpassed our wildest expectations. So far over £485-00 has been raised to be divided between GUA Africa and Rose of Sharon. The weekend didn't end there, after Church on Sunday 29 August, Phithi (our co-founder) was presented with a cheque for £250-00 from the congregation and PCC of St. John's Church, Horninglow and again this will be shared between our beneficiaries. We at Educating Others are so grateful for the generosity shown by the people in our area of Staffordshire, and though many have been thanked personally, we hope if we have missed anyone that they will accept our thanks through this Blog and our Newsletter. A few photos from Saturday's event are below.

A few of the visitors

some of the Sale items

Phithi chatting with three people with Zimbabwe connections;
Cyril on the left was in east Africa for 50 years, leaving
Zimbabwe in 2003. Heather, on the right, was born in the then
Rhodesia, Jane in the middle was also born there.
Cyril and Heather have both written articles for our earlier
Newsletters and both live locally.

Co-founder, Brenda Yates standing, chatting to helpers

Some more visitors

Phithi with Jane and Heather

Phithi with co-founders David and Brenda Yates standing
behind and three of the helpers at the event.

26 August - A Story from Rose of Sharon

Earlier today we received many photographs and a couple of short stories from Rose of Sharon, one of which we re-print below as written together with three photos.                                           

A FRIDAY AT ROSEY’S SHILOH UNIT CHILDREN

Starting out as a normal schooling day, children of Rose of Sharon School better known as Rosey by local residents were learning as usual but not until break time was over when the silence was broken by the melodious singing of the school choir and the dance group.

These two groups were rehearsing a presentation for visitors who were expected at Rose of Sharon Shiloh Unit.

By the way, Shiloh Unit is a childrens’ home for vulnerable and orphaned children under Rose of Sharon Organisation founded by Mrs F.Maruta. As energetic as the rehearsals were, these were all efforts of the Principal, and the school choir conductor Mrs Ndunduma who were working relentlessly aiming for perfection. Other students were peeping through windows as wanted to watch their peers rehearse for it had been very unfortunate that the principal had forbidden them to go outside. Mrs Maruta on the other side was busy putting things in order in preparation of a much more bigger event. As the visitors came in, they were greeted with an enthusiastic presentation from the dance group and choir. You could feel the expression, the spirit, I can not even explain but it was awesome. It was what I call a rejuvenating experience, that even neighbors saw what Rose of Sharon can do best as they were watching from their Durawalls. I heard one visitor calling the presentation International because of the awesome performance. Besides the presentation, we had time to interact with guys from local media and of the Internal Auditors. It was quite an experience and I salute the dance group and choir for giving such a fantastic presentation.

 NEWS EDITOR/WRITER - TAKUNDA DUBE

18 August - Up date from GUA Africa

This up-date info together with some photographs, is part of an e-mail received earlier today from Kate Gumm at GUA Africa

Preparation work for the building of the five brand new classrooms has begun at the Mary John site. The AMA construction team (and some local parents) began clearing the site by uprooting the couple of trees that were in the way of the build. The area in and around the Mary John School is very green and has a great deal of vegetation, so in order to make room for this massive expansion in their size they will have to sadly take down two trees. The AMA team then set about taking the necessary measurements, and marking out the construction site from the rest of the school.

Once all these measurements and markings had been completed, the digging of the foundations could begin. As you can see in the photographs the labourers first remove the top soil to an average depth of 150mm from the natural ground level and then they excavate a trench foundation in the ordinary soil to a depth not exceeding 1,000mm from the stripped ground level. These foundations will then be filled with timbers, but we will update you with photographs with these in the next newsletter!

Don't forget the Fund-raising Event - Saturday, 28 August

Old Free Grammar School,

Rolleston-on-Dove  -  Now the Church Room

Founded by Bishop Sherborne of Chichester

Robert Sherborne was born in Rolleston-on-Dove, and died in 1536. He was Dean of St. Paul's, London from 1499 to 1505, and from 1505 to 1508 he was bishop of St Davids in Wales. He then became Bishop of Chichester in 1508 until his death 1536.

He was a patron of the artist Lambert Bernard, commissioning several series of murals from him. He founded the Free Grammar School in Rolleston, around 1520, and it continued in use until 1909, when a new school was built in School Lane.

This is the Bishop of Chichester's silver seal which was taken to London once a year to obtain £10.00 which Robert Sherbourne left to provide funds towards the schoolmaster's stipend.