Welcome to the launch of our ACE Website!

We were delighted when ACE was registered as a charity in July. ACE works to provide the opportunity for children living in very disadvantaged communities to attend school. Without ACE, many of them would be unlikely to have the chance of an education.

We are a small charity and our current focus is to maintain and develop Arise Community School in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania into a full Primary School. ACE also supports several individual young people from impoverished circumstances to access or continue their education.

We hope you will follow our new blog and support us in the development of ACE.

Firstly, we would like to thank everyone who has donated money, helped and supported us in so many different ways to get this far since our first trip to Tanzania in 2008. We never dreamed then that our three months volunteering would lead to ACE! We are also indebted to Manchester Metropolitan University for creating our website and to those of you who have allowed us to use your photographs. With your help, donations and support, we hope that the website will enable us to take another big step forward.

Please join us in supporting and developing Arise School. So much has been achieved there but there is still so much more to do. Please work with us to ensure that the children can continue in their schooling and make the most of their chance of an education.

Since 2008, we have communicated regularly with our supporters and donors by newsletter. You can access our last newsletter here. Now that the website is up and running, we plan to cease our newsletters and communicate via our blog. We will be able to update you on the work of ACE and bring you any news as it happens. So, please watch this space.

We would also welcome any comments or ideas from you that will help us to improve and develop the way we do things. Please just use the contact facility on the website.

“Local Schools support our appeal for shoes and “Buy a Breakfast” Christmas Campaign” December, 2014

When we were at Arise School in September, the staff highlighted two things to us – the number of children who were coming into school in flip flops or very old trainers as their families can not afford shoes – a huge problem when the rains come and the unsurfaced roads turn into streams of mud – and the extent of malnutrition amongst the children. For too many of them, their daily mug of porridge at school every morning is their only meal of the day. They come into school hungry and they go to bed hungry.

We are very grateful to several local primary schools who have invited us in to speak about the work of ACE in recent weeks and to the children for their amazing fundraising efforts.

Our “pioneer” school, West End Primary School, Ormskirk, has been fundraising for us since 2013 and has undertaken several collections from which Arise School has already greatly benefitted. The children are continuing to add to their fantastic fundraising efforts to date. They are now decorating matchboxes, putting coins in them for our “Buy a Breakfast” Appeal and then hanging them on the school’s Christmas tree.

“Our children get a unique insight into how children live in different cultures. ACE is certainly an ace charity!” Nigel Baxter, Headteacher, West End Primary School, Ormskirk

Children at Queens Park Primary School, St. Helens, responded to our shoe appeal by holding a school disco and an own clothes day. We know that the money they raised is going to make an enormous difference to the children who will now have proper shoes when the rainy season arrives towards the end of February. The children at Queens Park are continuing their efforts to raise money for our Breakfast Appeal by making a wish as they drop their coins into a wishing well in the school reception area.

A huge “thank you” to all the schools and children who are currently raising money for ACE. If you teach in a school, have children at school or a link with a school who might be interested in inviting us into talk about the work of ACE, we would be delighted to hear from you