Stourbridge Meeting is involved in two ongoing overseas programmes. One is through its link to Seir Village in the West Bank of Palestine. The other is with partners in the Rwenzori Mountains in Western Uganda, where we have been supporting peace, anti-landmine issues, community development, and women’s and nursery education since 1998. Several members of Central England Area Meeting have visited this work, and two Stourbridge Friends have gone many times.

I’m happy to tell you that our two most active projects in Uganda have been active and successful during 2024, despite rising costs. They both are featured in our display at January Area Meeting. The reports from the five Ibanda Literacy Schools show good attendance both by nursery-school-age children and adult women acquiring literacy and income-earning skills. Julia Furminger and a friend paid a visit in January to extend a programme which she started in 2019, helping women and girls to make reusable sanitary pads, to make daily work easier and reduce absenteeism in schools.

Up to now the two projects have depended financially on the funds I and our Meeting have raised. But we realise that the time is coming to end this, because it cannot continue indefinitely as I grow older. So Julia hopes to pay a final visit this July; she will help to recruit someone to continue the SanPads work in schools for a further year, with a salary and supervision, after which we hope the idea will continue under its own momentum. We need
to raise funds for this.

We will continue to support the 21 salaries of the Literacy Schools staff through 2025 at a cost of £13,000. We will then stop making these payments, but we expect to give them a final sum of at least £25,000 for them to use in whatever way seems best for the schools to continue. We have worked with the leadership since 2002 and have full faith in their honesty, professionalism and commitment to the Schools. We know this will be a great challenge for them, but we trust in their resilience.

The implications for you, our friends, are that we will be appealing to you again this year, but it will be for the last time. We already have £5800, plus a promise of at least £20,000, so we have begun well.

With many thanks for your support and encouragement,
The Hope Project, 21 Heathfield Gardens,
Stourbridge, DY8 3YD
lampen@hopeproject.co.uk