Registered Charity No. 1044936
Some of these came to Bristol to live and attend local colleges, but it was always felt that it was better for them to stay in their own country to be educated. Over the years we must have sponsored hundreds of students and helped schools and clinics to become viable.
While travelling in India in the 1980s Anton met a young Christian pastor whose wife wanted to start a small school for village children who would not otherwise get an education. He began to send her small amounts of money and eventually the Anton Tuition Centre was built in Tiruchirappalli, N. India. Sewing and gem-cutting classes followed, set up specifically to help young women, some widowed, to earn small amounts of money to help their families.
All money received, usually around £15,000 a year, is immediately channelled into the Sponsorship Fund and we are currently (2005) helping 45 people in seven countries, as well as the Indian school and a small school in Cameroon. We have kind friends who give on a regular basis by Standing Order and many other donations help to make up the necessary funds. Every week there is another request for funding and it is a continual balancing act to divide the money.
In three countries we have our ‘troubleshooters’ who, being on the ground,
can tell us if the appeals are genuine, check if the young people are using the
money wisely and who
can receive the money and distribute it. This saves us
quite a lot of bank charges, as we are able to send larger amounts instead of
lots of small bits of money. Each time we do this the bank charge here in the UK
is £13 and there is often another charge by the receiving bank. Last year this
used over £500 of our hard earned cash.
The troubleshooters are Mrs Prema in S. India, Samuel Gomez, a schools inspector in Ghana and Robert Kigadi, one of the people whose family we have helped over the years, in Kenya as well as Fredrick Otwari, an IT graduate whom we also sponsored for his last two years.
We have helped with funding for a small school in
Malima, in Cameroon, set up by Judith Burnett, a former pupil of Bedminster Down
School. Her friend, Charlie Pridell, has asked us to sponsor two particularly
clever students, Martin and Mallama who come from very poor families who would
not be able to finance their education. Martin was recently placed third out of
800 students in his degree course and now wants to go on to do a Masters degree
and an entrance exam for a teacher training course.
All the sponsorees are extremely grateful for any help we can give and some of them, when they have established their families and careers, have begun to send money to help others.
A quotation from a poem written for Anton by Christine Lillington sums it up:
"You’ve travelled far, you’ve travelled near,
We’ve all heard many tales
Of
trips to cold Siberia
And holidays in Wales.
"You’ve made friends all around the world
And made your friends all friends,
The chain of love that you have forged
We’ll never know its ends."
Where you can help
As you will appreciate, the demands on our modest charity are enormous. It is only with the generous contributions from our friends & supporters that we are able to offer assistance to support these projects. For every young person we have seen through to economic independence, another two worthy candidates apply.
The list grows all the time and new sponsorees are taken on with little but FAITH that the means will be found to see them through.
You can help the University continue and develop its sponsorship of young people in the developing world by making a donation to the Sponsorship Fund. Please click here to find out how you can contribute to the sponsorship fund. Thank-you.