If you would like to know more or become involved, please contact Ann Greenhalgh by email: or phone 01454 294200.
Our registered address is Burlton House, The Burltons, Cromhall, GL12 8BH
Dear ‘Friends of CLinC’,
Thank you all for your continued support throughout the year. Thank you also to those who were able to be at our recent Coffee Morning. It was a great success, raising £1,072 for the work of CLinC. Amazing!
This will enable us to continue supporting the four community schools and even offer extra help as this is still the ‘hunger season’. This year Zambians are suffering from both a shortage of food and electricity. See below.
Schools close in December for the Christmas holiday and the end of the school year in Zambia. Grade 7 pupils are taking their exams in the hope of moving to secondary school next year. We wish them well!
Thanks again,
Ann on behalf of trustees of CLinC.
In Zambia this week, temperatures are in the low 30s at midday and fall to around 15 at night. However, with humidity up to 96%, it will feel hotter than this. There have been some showers of rain which will be welcome. This is the beginning of the rainy season when Zambia will be planting the maize crop for next year.
Maize makes up a major part of the national diet, while nutrient-rich foods such as beans and peas, dried fish and eggs, fruit and vegetables are eaten in small quantities, particularly amongst the poorest families.
This year the drought has ravaged Zambia's agriculture. Government reports indicate that nearly half of the 2.2 million hectares of maize have been destroyed. This significant crop loss has worsened an already precarious food situation for many Zambians. A lack of food grown locally and sold at a reasonable price, means that families must pay extra for imported foods. Many families are struggling to survive.
CLinC already provides help with a feeding programme in two of the schools that we support, providing two hot nutritious meals a week for all children and staff. One school we support feeds the children every day (even if the teachers go without pay!) but the fourth school has no feeding programme. This is something we can look at for next term.
Shortage of food is not the only problem. Zambia's worst electricity blackouts in memory have been caused by a severe drought that has left Lake Kariba with insufficient water to run its hydroelectric turbines. There have been power cuts for many years, but in October, ZESCO, Zambia’s power provider, struggled to provide 3 hours of power a day for most homes, (apart from the lucky people who share a circuit with a hospital or other important building)!
The Zambezi River, the fourth longest in Africa, is drying up! It serves as the lifeblood for millions of inhabitants on the continent and is a key energy resource. However, it is now on the brink of an ecological disaster.
Hopefully, this year, the rains will be plentiful and storms will not wash away crops and roads.
CLinC will certainly do its best to see that the 1000 children and 21 teachers, at the four schools we support, will receive our help and prayers.
Click here to read May 2024's newsletter to bring you all up to date with all that we are doing and how we are spending your money.
We celebrated CLinC's 20th anniversary with a wonderful 'Teas in the Garden'. This was held in Zena's lovely garden and the weather was perfect!
Thank you to everyone who helped in any way: baking cakes and making sandwiches, providing raffle prizes and manning stalls. It was good to see so many of you there, many of you walking 'the extra mile' after parking around the Village Hall!
The event raised a wonderful £618 for the work of CLinC which will enable us to offer some additional support to our four schools next term.
The newsletter is also our way of saying thank you to all who have generously supported us again this year. We hope you enjoy reading it.
Please also read our Annual Report for 2023 and pass it on to anyone you think would be interested in what we are doing.
Thank you for your continued support and interest,
Ann, on behalf of trustees.
CLinC (Changing Lives in Chongwe) is a small charity based in Cromhall, South Gloucestershire.
It was set up in 2004 to try to improve the educational, physical, health and spiritual well-being of the people of Zambia through selected projects. Read about how it started.
CLinC now supports 21 teachers and over 1000 children in four community schools in the compounds around Lusaka, capital of Zambia.
We run a series of fundraisers throughout the year, such as coffee mornings and craft fairs, and give talks to local organisations, such as Mothers' Union.
Our Charity Number is 1106904 and are trustees are:
Please note every penny we raise goes to the people of Zambia. All expenses claimed by trustees are re-donated in full and gift aided!
@cromhall