The Empowering the Future team in Tanzania, encouraged by our support have also self funded the construction of bee hives which have been installed in trees on the plot. This will encourage pollinators as well as hopefully providing a source of income through the harvesting of honey.
Looking forward…
A further visit by the UK Project Lead is planned for April 2026.
Annual Report and Accounts 1 February 2025 - 31 January 2026
Friends of Empowering the Future
Registered charity number 1208626
The main priority of that visit will be to establish a tree nursery and start planting some native Tanzania trees which are increasingly rare due to deforestation and unsustainable trading. The establishment of these as timber species will complement the previous planting of faster growing fuel and fodder trees.
We also look forward to growing relationships with key members of the community, ward council and schools in Lamaiti, Tanzania as their trust in our support for them grows.
Administration
Friends of Empowering the Future is registered at Hill House, Mount Pleasant, Millbrook, Cornwall. PL10 1BH. This is also the correspondence address.
The charity was registered with the charity commission in June 2024.
Trustees serving between February 1st 2025 and January 31st 2026 were:
Michael Rowe (Chair) Niall Dunne (retired end of March 2025) Richard Workman (appointed July 2025) Sarah Candlin (secretary)
Rev Alison Shaw
Four trustee meetings were held between the 1 February 2025 and January 31st 2026 including the AGM on 9 July 2025.
Others invited to attend and contribute to these meetings as Associate Members were:
Grace Kanungha,
Stephen Hatch (Treasurer) Festo Kanungha (Project Lead Tanzania), Jemma Morgan (Project Lead UK), Christine Salaman
Aims and Purposes
Friends of Empowering the Future (FoEtF) exists in the UK to fundraise for, facilitate and support the work of the Tanzanian NGO, Empowering the Future. Through our activities we are enabling education in rural Tanzania, with an emphasis on climate smart agriculture and building food security in a region already suffering the negative impacts of climate change. This education is freely available to all members of the communities served, irrespective of race, gender or religion. We also run a pre-school in Lamaiti village starting children on their English language learning journery.
Activities and Outcomes
The activities that have been enabled this year have increased the impact of the charity and continue to invest in future development.
In April 2025 a 2 week long visit was made to Tanzania by the UK Project Lead. The 2024-25 rainy season had been poor with unreliable rain leading to insufficient harvest of staple crops such as maize. A consultative meeting with
local people led to the purchase, by FoEtF, of vegetable seeds which were made available for a subsidised price, allowing families to grow small amounts of vegetables to improve their own diets and to sell surplus to generate cash to purchase maize to cover the ‘hungry gap’.
Other activities during that visit included building a brick form to make the correct size mud bricks for constructing fuel efficient stoves. This allowed 3 demonstration stoves to be built which generated interest among other villagers. Seminars/ teaching sessions about climate smart agriculture were offered in nearby districts, Lukali (25 attendees), Chonde (56), Miondo (21) and Bankolo (10) as well as in central Lamaiti with 2 local farmers able to share with attendees their own successful experiences with the intercropping techniques they had been taught the previous year.
A teaching session of the creation of compost was followed with building a compost heap encouraging the use of peanut husks which could be collected for free from the peanut mill. This is part of a longer term demonstration of the value of recycling plant nutrients in a way that will make them beneficial for future crops. It provides a productive alternative to the common practice of burning crop residues.
Investment in the local economy and pre-school was made by commissioning the local carpenter to make wooden toy blocks. These have proved to be so
popular that a further set were ordered and made in November 2025.
Local trust is growing and was further demonstrated by the gift of 9 banana plants for the Empowering the Future demonstration plot.
In the UK, fundraising continued with talks to churches who have previously supported the work of the charity. This resulted in sufficient money to be gifted to allow the purchase of bricks, other materials and labour to continue construction of the multipurpose building up to the level where the roof could be added later. This work was carried out when the UK Project Lead and 2 others visited Tanzania again in November 2025 using local labourers wherever possible.
Consequently, the building would now be stable throughout the rainy season and provide visible evidence of the commitment of Empowering the Future to
the community.
During the visit in November 2025, an ox plough was purchased with the intention of fabricating a fitting to replace the plough blade which would allow reduced tillage, and therefore less soil structure disturbance. This was something that the village metal craftsmen would take some time to complete due to material requirements and concept understanding.
Flyers to invite new pre-school members were created and hand delivered, resulting in 31 children registered for the new academic year in January 2026, covering 2 year groups. This means we need to get the building finished, and facilities such as toilets and the kitchen area set up as quickly as possible.
Demostrable results of education about intercropping were seen in the higher than expected yield of oil from sunflowers grown with cowpea, on the demonstration plot, and anecdotal evidence of the positive impact of the subsidised vegetable seeds was reported. One lady, Leah, had learned about budgeting at a ‘Leaky Bucket’ workshop in April, and bought vegetable seeds in April. By the November visit she had earned enough money to have a pig house built for her, and buy a pig, with the added bonus of having an
improved variety of vegetables for the diet of her own family. She has offered to explain her experience at future seminars to be run by EtF in April 2026
and is so enthused she has also been supported in building a fuel efficient stove for use in her home.
Unexpected joy came in December when a significant donation was made specifically to enable the roofing of the building.
In January the Tanzanian Project Lead was able to be on site to facilitate the construction of the roof and start the work of digging a large toilet pit over which facilities will be erected, as funding allows, hastening the time when the preschool can move in to use the classrooms.
There is still much work to be completed before the building can be fully functional, however the work can be broken down into stages. Collecting rainwater in a central underground tank is critical to avoid flooding during the rainy season and will provide a water source for washing and irrigation, and the purchase of furniture for the preschool classroom are our next tasks to fundraise for.
Fundraising
In addition to donations made at talks and presentations given by the Friends of Empowering the Future team, a ‘Twin your Farm’ scheme was launched, inviting UK farmers to make an annual donation and be linked with a subsistence farming family in Tanzania.
Annual Return Friends of Empowering the Future 01/02/2025- 31/01/2026
| Income Donations and Legacies -£ 3,365.25- Charitable Activities -£ 455.45- Other Trading Activities -£ -- Investments -£ -- Total -£ 3,820.70- |
Expense Individuals -£ 2,419.73- Other Charities -£ -- Non charities -£ 267.84- Total -£ 2,687.57- |
|
|---|---|---|
| Donations | Individuals | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Renumeration for money | |||||||
| Churches | -£ | 2,796.25- | spent in Tanzania towards the charities objectives by |
J Morgan | -£ 1,415.41- | ||
| nominated persons, (Non | |||||||
| Individuals | -£ | 569.00- | Trustees) | G | Kanungha | -£ 1,004.32- | |
| Charitable Activities | Non charities | ||||||
| Fundraising Meal | -£ | 455.45- | Website | -£ | 195.84- | ||
| License | -£ | 42.00- | |||||
| Sumup | -£ | 30.00- |