---------------------------Susan Shimeld
-----Wildlife Artist, Pet Portrait Artist and Natural History Illustrator

------------ -Archbishop Desmond Tutu's Tools For Self Reliance Appeal

Here's what Tools for Self Reliance patron, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said in his Radio Four Appeal on 2 May 1999:

A few years ago, my old friend, Trevor Huddleston asked me to join him as a patron of Tools for Self Reliance. They're a small organisation and not well known but I liked the originality and strength of their idea.

They collect old tools - hammers, saws - as well as sewing machines - do them up and send them to village workshops in some of the poorest parts of Africa.

This strikes me as common sense because I'm saddened by the wastefulness of modern society - and knowing what I've seen in Africa - I know how important ordinary hand tools can be.

Young people in Tanzania need tools if they are ever to get work. Disabled people in Ghana want to earn an independent living. Refugees in Uganda fleeing war want to take care of themselves and not depend on handouts. Yet in Africa - basic tools are hard to come by and can be impossibly expensive for working people.

Today in Britain, millions of tools are rusting away in sheds and garages. Volunteers from Tools for Self Reliance are working from the Orkneys to the Channel Islands - collecting and refurbishing these tools. Then they put them into the hands of hardworking people who are building their communities.

I think this is a beautiful thing. It's hard for people in Britain to make a link with people in Africa. But Tools for Self Reliance does just that. People to people - helping people to help themselves.

My African people have great skills, initiative and energy. They work so hard to develop their communities and their continent, against such heavy odds. But you cannot work with bare hands.

Tools for Self Reliance is twenty years old this year. They need your help - to buy hammer handles and hacksaw blades, to ship tools to Africa, to recruit and train new volunteers, to work with their partners - honest effective local organisations with roots in the poorest communities.

Their partners in Africa are asking for more tools than they can provide right now. With your help, they will do more. You can help make those people to people links - to put tools into the hands of people building a better world.


Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Please make a donation today to Tools for Self Reliance . Thank you.

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---------------------------------------Larmer Tree Studio


----------------------All Artwork, Images & Content © Susan Shimeld. 2002. All rights reserved.

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