A big thank you to all the schools who took part in the Schools for Africa project! The boxes have now been delivered to the children who were absolutely thrilled to receive their presents. Both Sally Keeble MP and Cathrine Russell, from Sally’s office, went to Africa to witness the boxes being handed over. Many children found it hard to believe that schools in faraway England would think of them! Look out for photos in the photo gallery of boxes from your school!

Happy children with their boxes from Northampton School for Girls

If your school enjoyed the Schools for Africa project please make sure you let your MP know - so that they can be back in touch about the project next September. In fact, we’d be very grateful if teachers involved took the time to fill in one of our feedback forms (which you can download below) to tell us more about your Schools for Africa activities.

A Kenyan boy receives his Schools for Africa box,
which comes all the way from Kingsley Primary School.

The little boy is supported by KENWA, the Kenyan Network for Women with AIDS, which as well as helping women, helps their children, who may be orphaned or very vulnerable. 

Children from Thorplands Primary schools help their MP, Sally Keeble,
get boxes ready to send to Africa

"We have been overwhelmed with the excellent response from the children and parents of our school. In October we invited Sally Keeble along to our Harvest Festival to talk about the boxes, where they went and who received them.  Sally showed us some very moving pictures of the children happily receiving their boxes and she told us about the conditions in which the children were living.  This has really motivated our children and their parents to support this worthy project even more than in previous years.  After Sally's visit we had a Mufti Day when the children could bring in money or an item for the boxes.  The response was so good we had to ask for more boxes.  We will use the money to make sure each box contains a good variety of items and is a real delight to open."

Anne Partridge, Head

This year’s Schools for Africa event star guest was pop-star Annie Lennox. Over one hundred children travelled to Parliament from schools in Northampton, Buckingham, Luton, Amber Valley, Camberwell and Peckham to meet her and participate in the Schools for Africa 2006 project.

Annie Lennox encouraged pupils to become activists for Africa and showed them how to pack boxes of gifts to be sent out to Kenya, Tanzania or Zimbabwe. They then had a chance to eat some lunch and have their photos taken with the star. Other people at the event included the High Commisioner from the Kenyan Embassy and representatives from the Tanzania Embassy. The International Development Minister also took part and spoke to the children about the kind of challenges that orphans in Africa commonly face.

Pupils all said they had a great day. Sophie Power from St Loys Primary School in Weedon Lois, said ”I like going to the House of Commons. Its really big. Annie Lennox was really good. She made me want to be an activist. I think the children in Africa deserve to be helped.”

Annie Lennox with pupils from Eastfield Primary School in Northampton

Schools for Africa 2006 will be sending boxes to HIV/Aids orphans and vulnerable children in Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Our twinned projects in Africa are the Kenyan Network of Women with Aids  - Kenwa, the Joha Trust in Tanzania and UNICEF in Zimbabwe. Kenwa, based in Nairobi, is run by and for women who are HIV positive. The organisation was set up eight years ago to provide care in the community for people who are HIV positive and for orphans and vulnerable children. It provides services through eight community centres in and around Nairobi. The Joha Trust runs a girls boarding school on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam and will act as a hub for distribution of the boxes to vulnerable children in the community. In Zimbabwe boxes will be distributed to children supported at the Matthew Rusike Home in Harare, and in the wider community.

Update from Sarah, a pupil at Earl Spencer Primary School.

"Hello my name is Sarah. I am a year six pupil at Earl Spencer Primary School . At the beginning of the school term I went to ‘The Good Shepherd School’ with Mrs Gipki our learning mentor. The TV presenter Michael Underwood did an assembly about ‘The Boxes for Africa ‘project. Also there was Sally Keeble MP and some prominent people from the African countries.

We were also shown a video about the children of Africa who had lost some of their relatives due to AIDS. Some of these children were also dying of AIDS or AIDS related illnesses.

Michael Underwood showed us items that we could put into the boxes as presents for the children; he also showed us some items that we should not put into the boxes. On the way back to school we decided that once our boxes arrived we would do an assembly in a similar way that Michael Underwood did his.

Two weeks later our boxes arrived and we did our assembly. Mrs Gipki and me had lots of fun doing the assembly and we hope everyone in our school enjoyed it also. Each class has been given two boxes and letters have gone home to parents explaining about the project, some classes have already returned their finished boxes. "