Coronavirus Appeal

Dear friends,

Whilst our TV news has understandably focused on the UK’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic, it won’t surprise you to know that Africa is now being significantly affected.  Ethiopia reported its first case of COVID-19 on 13 March 2020 and the government has taken various measures to control the pandemic, including a 5 month state of emergency.

Your ongoing support is making an important difference.  The sponsorship donations made by Tesfa supporters help to meet the basic needs of individual sponsored children and elderly people.   Since March, our partner projects have been providing takeaway meals for the sponsored children as they are no longer at school – this has been a good thing but there is much more support needed for the families too.  As in many developing countries, the pandemic has severely affected the most vulnerable groups where the majority of livelihoods rely on daily income, casual labor and petty or street trades.  With Government support yet to reach the communities we support and most families’ income either gone or at best extremely reduced, there’s a clear need to focus on supporting the families of the sponsored children like never before.  There is an urgent need for basic food support (including teff, flour, pasta, oil) and vital sanitation materials like soap, hand sanitiser and face masks.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

There are four ways to help:

1. Support our Coronavirus Appeal as best you can – all funds raised will be sent to our two partner projects for use towards their COVID-19 response.
2. If you are already sponsoring a child or an elderly person, we thank you so much for this.  It is an amazing way to make a difference to their lives – please continue to be loyal in that support if you are financially able to.
3. If you are able to consider a longer-term support then please consider sponsoring a child or elderly person – the investment in their lives is an amazing opportunity. We can let you have more details – sponsoring a child costs £15 per month and an elderly person is £12pm. Please email me at paul.wilson@tesfa-trust.org if you’re interested.
4. For those of you who pray, please pray too for the communities we support in Addis Ababa and especially the children and elderly we are trying to support.

No gift is too small.  Here are some examples of how your money might be used:

• £3 will provide sanitation materials for a household for a month
• £26 will provide 100 cloth face masks
• £57 will provide basic food supplies for a whole family for a month

You can donate safely online (use the button above, or type the link into a browser: https://givi.ng/dmh8), or you can, of course, send a cheque if you prefer or make an online transfer to our usual account.)

Thank you, on behalf of our sponsored children, elderly people, and their communities, for your ongoing support.

With best wishes,

Paul

PS: If you are interested to know more about how we have assessed the needs of our partner communities, and the deeper impacts of the pandemic on the NGOs that we work with, please see the previous post.