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Fair Trade Fortnight

Celebrate Fair Trade Fortnight & Win A Free Ishi Teapot

To celebrate Fair Trade Fortnight Nkuku will be donating 5% of all sales to one of our favourite charities, the ‘Manacare Foundation’

Nkuku have been supporting the Manacare Foundation and its work to create a sustainable community infrastructure in Sri Lanka after the devastating tsunami in 2004.

To find out more about the ongoing projects we are supporting in Sri Lanka please follow this link http://www.manacare.org/srilanka.html

The Nkuku team will also be hosting a ‘Fair Trade Tea Party’ on Thursday 8^th March so why not join us in the celebrations and host your own ‘Fair Trade Event’

Just to tempt you even more Nkuku will be giving away a free Ishi Tea Pot to the first 40 orders!!!! We’d love to hear about how you’ve chosen to promote fair trade fortnight so please email your event details and photos to info@nkuku.com and we’ll include a pick of the best on our Nkuku blog!

Manacare Foundation

Nkuku is delighted to support this fantastic charity in Sri Lanka.

The Village of Hopes and Dreams is run by an amazing woman called Joy.  Joy has kindly provided us with some details on Manacare and more specifically the work that she carries out in Sri Lanka. Her dedication and motivation are inspiring.

"Manacare was first registered in the UK in 1994 and has worked all over the world, their first project was to pipe water from the river Nile to four refugee camps in the north of Uganda. They then went on to establish projects in many countries, Lithuania, Egypt, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Malawi, Siberia, the Philippines and of course in Sri Lanka.

Manacare has absolutely no overhead or company cars. It is grass roots. 

Friends, Family and Supporters raised nearly 100,000 euros at the time of the Tsunami. I didn't want to give it to the Government and so came to Sri Lanka with a team of volunteers, we purchased land and acquired the necessary permissions to start building, slowly the volunteers faded away but I have been here now for seven years.

The essence of a Hopes and Dreams Village is that the very small profit from the things we make, can keep the services part of the projects going.

The Village now has a School with Montessori, Music lessons, Computer Lessons, Drama and Dance, medical centre with different therapies, baby clinic, birth control clinic and pharmacy.

There is also a centre for handicapped children specifically Conductive Education and a crèche for the babies. There is a small pool and hydrotherapy bath that is nearly ready to go but still requires funds for plumbing.  We also have an Ayurvedic doctor once a week, and a GP once a week.

There are three houses, all with a handicapped member. One little girl was in a chemical bomb explosion in the Lebanon and is now severely disabled; she lives with her mother in one house.

A little boy called Newan jumped in a mound of burning rice husks running away from Tsunami, he burnt his legs almost to the bone, initially the medical people wanted to amputate, but we have persevered and he now plays cricket and runs around, he has grown into a lovely young man, now 17!!

The third house is occupied by a lovely couple. The young man has mild cerebral palsy and was found living in very poor circumstances, we brought him to the village and began treating him.  He is now happily married to girl also undertaking treatment.

We also have another small house which has been sponsored for a young orphan with cerebral palsy boy. He was put on the orphanage steps when he was just two days old, and is now 14. The orphanage cannot keep him anymore and are keen for us to take him".

This is just an insight into the work that Joy does if you are interested in finding out more please visit http://www.manacare.org/srilanka.html.