ZAP News

Please click here to read the latest news on the Power Crisis, new Jambiani Community Academy and the Jambiani Fundi Workshop among other items of interest.

Last summer Lucy Kerr, a teacher at Ludgrove Preparatory School, was part of the amazing North2South sponsored cycle ride which raised a huge amount of money for ZAP.  A glutton for punishment, Lucy has now undertaken to do a sponsored swim of 5 km in the Ludgrove school pool on June 20th in aid of ZAP.  She tells us that the boys have offered to do relays to urge her on, and you can read about the wider adventure she has undertaken on her web page at JustGiving by following the link http://www.justgiving.com/Lucy-Kerr-Swim. Andrew, Pat and Janet are going down to Ludgrove to give a ZAP presentation on 18th June and needless to say we are delighted that she has chosen us as her charity.  Good luck, Lucy and thank you so much. 

Mark Wren and his daughter Izzy visited Jambiani and Stone Town during her school holidays. Mark found ZAP through this website, and asked if we could help him to give his daughter the chance to experience something of the lives being led by girls of her age in a very poor African community. With the help of Mr Pandu and Mr Vuai, we were able to do just this. Mark wanted Izzy to realise how fortunate she and her contemporaries are and to see at first hand the contrast between our comparatively luxurious existence and that of Jambiani school girls. Izzy has written a moving account of her experiences. Click here to read the article

Emily Gerard-Leigh, one of ZAP's very first volunteers ran in the London Marathon last Sunday and raised over £3,000 for ZAP, including Gift Aid.  It was a particularly gritty effort, as Emily was suffering from a cold and sore throat;  we are so grateful to her, and to all the ZAP supporters who so kindly sponsored her.  THANK YOU EVERYONE!

Great news!  The power crisis seems to be over in Zanzibar and the electricity has been on, though somewhat erratically, since March 9th.  The restoraton of power after 3 months is wonderful news for the people of Jambiani who have suffered appalling privations due to lack of safe water for the past 3 months.  It is a great relief for ZAP, too, as we have now had to spent over $6000 on providing emergency water lorries to the beleagured villagers, in addition to consignments of bottled water and extra funds for living expenses to the emergency clinic. Our thanks are due to many ZAP subscribers for their concern and support during the crisis, and Mr Pandu sent us a message to say that we are one of the very few organisations to give vital and practical help, which is deeply appreciated by his people.

One of ZAP's original, long-standing volunteers - Emily Gerard-Leigh - is running for ZAP in this year's London Marathon - her target is to raise £2,000 and she knows from her experience what a huge difference this will make to the people of Jambiani.  It is wonderful news that, yet again, a young person wants to raise money for our charity, and she is on a promise that any funds raised will be doubled should she complete in under 4 hours! 

If you would like to sponsor Ems, please this link: http://justgiving.com/EmilyGerard-Leigh  as a hard-working solicitor, training hard in her free time, she deserves all the support she can get.  If anyone happens to be watching on the day, or otherwise tuned in, watch out for the ZAP logo on a very pretty girl's tee shirt.  GOOD LUCK!!

A hugely successful Quiz Night was held at the end of January at Sussex Barn, Burnham Market. 190 people took part, and it was great to see so many new faces - including young people from far and wide - as well as ZAP’s stalwart local supporters. We were greatly indebted to the Thompsons for kindly letting us have the Barn – an ideal venue for a very jolly evening in which 24 teams pitted their wits against each other. The winning team, ‘Normal for Norfolk’ just edged ahead by the smallest of margins to take First Prize in what was, admittedly, a pretty tough quiz . Team names and interesting picnic themes were also in the competitive mix; they were very hard to judge as everyone had made fantastic efforts. Narrow winners were the ‘Missing Links’ who just pipped ‘Jewels in the Crown’ – and the best team name went to ‘Timu Ya Kwanza’ – Swahili for Top Team!

The Event was superbly compered by Alec Lochore and Henry Symington, and four enormous plasma TV screens showed films of Zanzibar and ZAP’s work in Jambiani in the intervals. Due to the skills of Quiz Controller, Janet Lane, we were also able to flash up on the screens the results of each section as they happened - which greatly added to the competitive atmosphere!

In place of a raffle, we had the Tree of Hope and Jambiani Supa-Duka lottery – you bought a piece of fruit or a special monkey or parrot and were guaranteed a prize. An amazingly generous response to our request for prizes and donations, as well as advertising space on the Programme meant that at the end of the evening ZAP had raised well over £8,000.