Oasis Village Trust

Progress on site

It’s been over five months since the last news on Oasis Village and it’s very exciting to see the progress that has been made. The perimeter wall has been completed on three sides, including a fence ( insert picture of fence). The remaining side should be finished within the next month or two and gates will be added. Internal work has started in the eight chalets, with pipes and wiring in preparation for the electricity supply. Trenches have been dug and pipes will be purchased to draw out the sewage when the water supply is accessed.

 

Next BIG project…

The borehole! Please pray for expertise for the workers to know the best place to drill for water, and that the water source won’t be too far underground - the further they dig, the more expensive the outcome! We have money to start this project but still need money to complete it. The borehole is VITAL as the first children can start to move in only when we have running water and electricity.

Summer teams

Three teams are heading out to Zambia over the Summer to work on the site; it's very exciting to see teams go out as so much can be accomplished in a short period of time.
The first team consists of three men from the Ulster Temple including one of the pastors, Stephen Thompson. Their main aim is to provide support for the Moyo family and help out wherever they can. Then a team of twenty people, led by Colin McKibben, is heading out from Hillsborough Presbyterian Church in July. They will be involved in plastering and finishing off chalet one and also in children’s ministry at Sakania Village. The third team is a group of young people who will be led by Phil and Claire Stanley; they arrive this August and their main aims are to build a jungle gym for the children, to run children’s programmes at Sakania and to provide ministry for women. My son Matthew is spending three months in Zambia and will be involved with all three teams - he is ready to roll his sleeves up and get stuck in!
If you are participating in any of these teams I just want to take this opportunity to thank you. I trust and pray that you will have a wonderful experience and make a huge impact for Oasis Village.

Belfast Marathon 2010 - 'Staggering success!'

I finished off the last news by encouraging people to sign up for the Belfast Marathon on 3 May 2010 and am still amazed at the response. EIGHTY-EIGHT people took part for Oasis Village and it was a fantastic day. Currently we have raised a staggering £12,500 and money still has to come in from over 50 people so I am very excited to find out what our final total will be! It is definitely our most successful fundraiser to date and I would love everyone who took part to consider running for Oasis again next year. Every penny raised this year will go towards the children and their needs as they move into the Village. Your thoughtfulness and support will transform their lives in a mighty way and they will never forget it. A MASSIVE thank you to Adair and Milliken who sponsored our beautiful Oasis Village t-
shirts that everyone wore on the day. And a special word of thanks to our top fundraiser Chris Ritchie from H Ritchie and Sons EW who ran the 26 miles and raised a staggering £4500, this includes a cheque for £1000 given by Eddie Haughey from J Haughey & Sons.

Targets:-

- Completion of borehole
- Electricity supply
- FIRST CHILDREN MOVE IN!

The next update will be in September when all the summer teams have returned, so I can give you a complete progress report. Please keep the Moyo family and Oasis Village Trust in your thoughts and prayers over the next few months.
Thanks again for your support and commitment to the project. It is truly amazing to see what has been achieved over the last few years and it will be very exciting to see what God will do in the coming months.

God Bless

Annalisa

The last few months have been very busy at Oasis Village. Even though it is the middle of the rainy season, the African builders have been focusing on building a wall around the perimeter of the site. When it is finished a fence will be erected on top to provide security. Ziso is working really hard at the site before he has a well deserved Christmas break in N Ireland, along with the rest of the Moyos!

Fundraising Events

On Saturday 28 November a motley crew had the great opportunity to bag pack in Marks and Spencer at Sprucefield. We raised a staggering £1644.63. All this money will go towards paying the school fees for the children we support in the school at Sakania Village. On behalf of all those wonderful children and Oasis Village I would like to say a massive thank you to Marks and Spencer and all their shoppers. Every penny counts!

 

Another big thank you goes to the girls and leaders of Seaview Junior Every Girls Rally who worked hard to produce 200 bags of reindeer food. When the bags were sold the proceeds provided a Christmas party for Sakania Village, with 200 children all receiving presents and food! Go into the video link on the website to see the Christmas party at Sakania this year.

For all the internet shoppers out there, did you know that you can support Oasis Village financially without putting your hand in your pocket? There’s a website called The Giving Machine (www.thegivingmachine.co.uk) and its sole purpose is to raise money for charity through online shopping. There’s a link on our home page and it only takes a few seconds to set up an account; then you can pick Oasis Village as your nominated charity and every time you shop through this website Oasis Village receives up to 5% of what you spend! Please spread the word and encourage your friends to sign up. Within 3 weeks Oasis Village has received £65.62 and has 22 givers who have signed up, so don’t delay, sign up today!

Other Supporters

This year we are delighted that the Wallace Rainbows and Brownies are fundraising for Oasis Village Trust; it’s their centenary year and all the money they collect and raise will go towards Oasis Village. We also have the full support of the Scouts from Carryduff, who are fundraising all year in an effort to raise enough money to build a chalet at the site!

Don’t forget about Weecycle, the recycling children’s boutique on the Lisburn Road in Finaghy. They support Oasis Village as their nominated charity and we have just received over £200 from people donating clothes and thereby allowing the charity to benefit. For everything sold that has been given for charity Oasis receives 50% of the price! If you have any good quality children’s clothes, toys, prams etc please donate these to the Weecycle shop so that our support can continue to rise. Please also spread the word to your friends and family.

Lambeg Players' New Year Show.

Lambeg Players' New Year Show.

 

This year the superb Lambeg Players are putting together a show which is called “Once Upon a Time”. It’s a selection of their dramatic highlights from the last few seasons and it will be a fantastic production if the last few years are anything to go by! My tickets are sold out for
Thursday 7 Jan 2010.
However I still have a few tickets left for
Wednesday 6 Jan 2010
If you would like to go, or know of any groups who might be keen, please email me at the above address and I can reserve seats for you. It costs £10 per adult and £8 per child. We make over £1000 every year through the show, so we are extremely thankful for the consistent support shown by the Lambeg Players.

 

And last but not least a big THANK YOU to all our regular monthly supporters. What has been achieved in the last two years is phenomenal and we are very grateful. May God Bless you and your family this Christmas time and in the New Year.

 

Annalisa

 

PS Don’t worry if you eat too much over Christmas and pile on a few pounds - I am still looking for marathon runners for the Belfast Marathon in May 2010! January is plenty of time to start training!

The last few months have been very busy at Oasis Village; I am just back from a month in Zambia and am very excited about the progress that has been made! The site was transformed compared to last year and it’s fascinating to see each stage and to think about the wonderful potential within Oasis Village. I got to spend time at the site; quality family time with Moyo’s and went to Sakania Village every week. I had the opportunity to take 48 children from Sakania on a day trip due to the wonderful generosity of my P4 class. We had a barbeque and the children played football, volleyball, went in a rowing boat, got their faces painted, played in the park and had great fun on the bouncy castle! On the way home we stopped to buy them all a tub of ice cream and some of them put it into their goody bags to bring home. They had never had ice cream before and didn’t realise it would melt! (A very humbling and moving experience). It was a fantastic trip and I would encourage anyone to go and see it for themselves.

Progress at the site

In addition to our faithful African builders we were blessed by the help of 3 teams during the summer months.

The lift team (labour in faith and trust) helped to make terraces and put on the roofs. They worked extremely hard and were very generous with monetary donations from themselves and friends back home. This money will go towards the fence. God’s timing is amazing, we had been praying specifically for money for the fence that week and by the end of the week we had received a substantial amount!

The Ulster Temple team consisted of 4 men who cleaned the interior of external houses, helped put on the roof of the 8th house and made a start on digging the foundations for the fence by hiring a huge digger! They were also involved in a few very successful crusades. Another highlight was when Matthew and two African workers got arrested for sitting on the back of the truck on top of supplies, they were taken to the local police station where Ziso had to pay a total of £30 to bail them all out!

Reiss and Simon from Bath in England also joined the working party for a few weeks. When they arrived Ziso needed to get a lot of firewood for the kiln to burn the bricks, so they had a lot of 5am starts!! They worked at the site and got involved in everything before heading off to Victoria Falls for a well deserved break.

There are about twenty men who work on site on a regular basis but the expertise of the teams over the summer months made a huge difference. When I arrived at the site in July 2008 this was the view from the mountain.

Click on the video clip below to see what I saw this August 2009. What a difference a year makes!!!!

Fundraising Events

As you are aware Oasis Village supports some children from Sakania Village. It pays school fees for about thirty children to attend school. The fees are around £20 in Primary School. This year at least ten of the children are due to start High School in January if they pass their exams. School fees alone go up to about £80 which doesn’t include books or uniform. We wanted to do a fundraiser specifically to help these children.

We are very thankful to Marks and Spencer at Sprucefield who are allowing us to do a bag pack on Saturday 28th November. All the money raised will go to the children at Sakania so that they can go to school. The children love school and work extremely hard to enable them to have a better future.

If you can spare an hour or two on Saturday 28th November and would like to help with the bag pack then please let me know by emailing me at oasisvillagendola@yahoo.co.uk

It’s only a few hours out of your weekend but the time you give could send a child to school for the year…….

 

Lambeg Players New Year Show.

This year the Lambeg Players are putting together a show which is called “Once Upon a Time.” It’s a selection of all their best bits over the last few years and it will be a fantastic show if the last few years are anything to go by! I am selling tickets for:

Wednesday 6 Jan 2010
and
Thursday 7 Jan 2010

If you would like to go or know of any groups who might be keen then please email me at the above address and I can reserve seats for you. It costs £10 per adult and £8 per child. We make over £1000 every year through the show and are very thankful for the support shown by the Lambeg Players.

May I take this opportunity to thank EVERYONE who supports the work of Oasis Village Trust. It is greatly appreciated Annalisa.

 

A lot has happened over the last few months with our biggest news being the purchase and arrival of the truck! In Northern Ireland when you purchase a vehicle, you drive to the showroom, fill in a few forms, hand over a cheque and drive it home. This is not the case in Zambia, it took Ziso a full week to collect, pay for and return home with the truck. Check out his itinerary below!

Tues 31 Mar  5:00 pm - Left Ndola Bus station
Wed   1 Apr   6:30 am - Arrived in Nkonde (Border Zambia/Tanzania) 8:00am - Left Nkonde
7:00pm - Arrived Dar Es Salam
Thurs  2 Apr  9:00am - Went to port to see agent
3:00pm - Truck cleared and set off back to Nkonde
Sat  4 Apr  12:30pm - Arrived at Nkonde border to start clearing truck
Sun 5 Apr  All day - Still at border! Mon 6 Apr 3:00pm - Set off for Ndola
Tues 7 Apr 9:00am - Arrived in Ndola, pretty alert due to coffee and red bull!!

The truck was then given a make over and sprayed silver and the Moyo’s brought it to Sakania Village to see what the kids thought of it!! (It will be used to bring them on trips in the future. I just can’t believe how many children can fit into it!!!)

A huge thank you to everyone who helped raise money for the truck.

Progress at the Site

Construction of house 1 and 2 are complete, house nos. 3,4,5,6 and 7 are at roof level. The convenience of the truck will make it easy to purchase the materials needed for the roofing. House no. 8 is still at foundation level. This particular house has been awaiting the truck.

Two thousand bricks have been made in the last two weeks. The aim is to make six thousand bricks and then use these to start building a cafeteria by the end of May. How exciting!

Ziso has applied to purchase more land at the site to allow for the possibility of building a preschool and possibly a primary school in the future! When this is approved the next big step will be to erect a fence around the property to make the site secure.

Metal fence

A metal fence will be erected surrounding the perimeter of the land and a six strand electric fence will be put on top. The approximate cost of materials, labour and installation is £10,000. This is our next big fundraiser and we need lots of help! If you feel you can contribute or even hold a fundraising event to help cover some costs specific to the fence that would be fantastic. I heard a story recently from Ziso that 2 little sisters in Ndola aged about 3 and 4 became orphans and they were being looked after by their 80 year old granny. The granny still needed to work out in the fields to support her family. One day a fire broke out in the field and when this happens a fire is usually started at the other side of the field so that it will catch in the middle rather than spreading for miles. Tragically the granny didn’t get out in time. These are the kinds of children that we desperately want to reach, and this can’t happen until the site is secure with a fence. If you can help in any way please email me at oasisvillagendola@yahoo.co.uk.

Wee Cycle

Some very exciting news for Oasis Village is that a recycling boutique called Wee Cycle has opened up at 159 Upper Lisburn Road Finaghy. It is a beautiful boutique where you bring washed and ironed children’s designer/very good quality clothes to the shop. An account is set up and when your items are sold you can either receive 40% back in cash or 50% can be spent in the shop or if you want to donate what you make to charity, the charity supported by the shop is Oasis Village Trust! Please support this shop and spread to word to friends and family! The boutique is very classy, I even spied a little pair of baby ugg boots in the window and there are beautiful prams for sale too!!!

Fundraising Events 2009

Pampered Chef Night

This took place in Benmore  Community centre on Friday 20 February. It was a brilliant night and raised approximately £400 for Oasis Village Trust. Many thanks to Joanne Savage for all her hard work!

Glenn Ferguson Testimonial Dinner

A testimonial dinner was held at the Ramada on Sat 28 February for Glenn Ferguson from Linfield Football Club. They did a short presentation on the night concerning Oasis Village Trust and carried out a collection and raised £1000. This will be used to build a house at Oasis Village and it will be named The Ferguson House so that when Glenn eventually hangs up his boots his legacy will continue in Ndola, Zambia! A huge thank you to Linfield Football Club for allowing Oasis Village to feature on their special night, it is very much appreciated.

Formal for Oasis Village

On 17 April a formal was held in the Ramada for Oasis Village. It was a fantastic night with a beautiful meal and auction, which included sponsoring Scotty to get his head shaved! Over £1600 was raised on the night. Many thanks to Claire and Debbie who organised the event. When’s the next one?.....

Upcoming Events

Friday 15 May 2009 Mamma Mia Night at Comber Cinema.

We have had a great response to this and it is a sell out. For all you lucky ladies who managed to get a ticket for the night you are in for a real treat……Don’t forget there is a great prize for the best Abba costume on the night!!!!

Saturday 27 June 2009

We are proposing to hold a seven a side hockey tournament in Belfast and are looking for 28 keen individuals who would like to play!!! Email me if you are interested or know of anyone who would like to take part.

If you would like any further information on anything mentioned in the latest news please email me at oasisvillagendola@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks
Annalisa

PS We are now on Facebook!!! Search for Ziso Moyo if you want to become our friend and then invite all your friends to view it so that many more people will be made aware of Oasis Village Trust!

Just wanted to keep you updated on progress at the site. There are actually 8 chalets making progress at the minute, in between the rain storms! Each house has a different set of brick layers working at different speeds, that’s why some houses are further on than others. The plan is to slow down the work until the truck arrives to stop continued spending on hiring. Here’s a run down on the progress.

House no.2 has a roof, burglar bars and the window fittings are partially complete. House no.3 is still at ring beam awaiting a roof. House no. 4 is nearly at window level. House no. 5 is still at foundation . House no. 6 is at window level nearing ring beam. House no. 7 is at ring beam level. House no. 8 the foundations are nearly complete.

Fundraising

On 6 January 250 of us headed to see the Lambeg Players performing the pantomime Sinbad. I am sure everyone will agree that it was a fantastic performance and over £1000 was raised for Oasis Village Trust through ticket sales and a bucket collection on the night.

We also had the opportunity to do bag packing in Marks and Spencers at Sprucefield on the Saturday before Christmas, and I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who came down to help with the bag packing and to the generous customers who let us pack their groceries. We raised an amazing £2010 and are very thankful to Marks and Spencers for the opportunity.

The reindeer food made by P4 children in Finaghy Primary School also raised £500 which provided a Christmas Party for 200 children at Sakania Village. A video has been unloaded onto the Oasis Village Website where you can view the party, it lasts about 3 minutes and is well worth a look! 

We also want to say a huge thank you to Bangor Grammar School who participated in a sponsored walk and gave £300 towards the work of Oasis Village.

 

The truck

A lot of our recent fundraising was organised to go towards a much needed truck for the site, to help with the building work and to provide transport for the children when they move in. On Tuesday 20 January a second hand 2 tonne 4 door Nissan Condor truck was ordered from Japan. It can take up to 4 weeks before the truck will be shipped over to Africa. Then up to 5 weeks later it will arrive at Dar Es Salam where Ziso will meet it and it will be a 2 day drive to get the truck up to Ndola.

Once again I would like to thank everyone who has supported the work of Oasis Village Trust so far. Every penny is vital towards the progress and it’s amazing how far the work has come!

Upcoming Events

Three more fundraisers are on the horizon! Some details are mentioned below.

Friday 20 Feb 2009 Pampered Chef Night at Benmore Community Centre in Finaghy.
Come and dine with the professional chefs and learn valuable tips in the kitchen!

Friday 17 April 2009 Formal at the Ramada Hotel.
Get the glad rags out and your dancing shoes on! Tickets cost £35 per person.

Friday 15 May 2009 Mamma Mia Night at Comber Cinema.
For all the ladies this is a night to remember with fabulous food, fun, amazing goody bags and lots more……

If you would like further information, on any of these events, please email me at oasisvillagendola@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks

Annalisa

Hot off the press “1st chalet gets front door!” I am sure this is a real blessing to the guys who are living in this chalet (to provide security for the site) especially with the rainy season looming! The roofing sheets are going up on the 2nd chalet next week and the 3rd chalet has been built up to ring beam level.

Foundations have been dug for 5 other chalets and thousands of bricks have been burnt and are ready for building. With the beginning of the rainy season the guys are planning to work as hard as they can inbetween weather conditions. Ziso and Charlton are putting their agricultural skills to good use by preparing a plot of land for planting crops.

Ziso is up at the site every day working very long hours, a truck is needed for building materials and we are hoping to organise some fundraising to help purchase a good second hand truck for the site. (Anyone willing to lend a hand bag packing should let me know!)

Fundraising

A big thank you goes out to Wendy Lemon who ran the Great North Run on 4th October 2008 and raised a staggering £900! Your training and hard work really paid off and the money is greatly appreciated. Three cheers for Wendy!

Our faithful friends The Lambeg Players have provided us again with the opportunity to sell 250 tickets for their Christmas Pantomime called Sinbad, on Tuesday 6 January 2009 in Lisburn Island Centre. For anyone who has ever seen the players in action, I am sure you will agree that they are superb and definitely give the Opera House a run for their money. We always raise over £1000 from ticket sales and have a fantastic night in the process. Anyone wishing to go should get in touch with me asap as tickets always sell out very quickly. You won’t be disappointed. (email oasisvillagendola@yahoo.co.uk for more details.)

The P4 classes in Finaghy Primary School are currently making reindeer food to sell to their friends and family. They want to help by raising money to provide the Sakania children with a fabulous Christmas Party! We hope to video the children getting their presents so you can see their beautiful smiling faces and their delight in the New Year.

Thanks again for all your support and commitment to Oasis Village; it is greatly appreciated as always.

Have a Super Christmas and a Prosperous New Year! 

Annalisa

I had the greatest pleasure of spending 5 weeks in Zambia over July and August 2008. My main purpose of the trip was to spend quality family time with Nicki, Ziso, Zach and Zoe and I also had the opportunity to visit and catch up on the progress at the building site. There will be a video coming soon which shows the progress at the site. I will email you when it is ready for viewing!

I also had the wonderful opportunity of visiting Sakania Village 3 times to help with children’s programmes and we took 30 of Sakania youth out for the day for a bbq, games and craft. I love working with these children as they are always so happy and friendly even though they have so little. It’s great that Oasis Village can provide some support for the children of Sakania Village.

The Building Site

When I arrived at the site the first thing I noticed was that 10,000 bricks had been made, this will be used to build the next 4 chalets. The 1st chalet just needs a front door, the 2nd chalet needs iron sheets for the roof, windows and a door. (See picture) The African workers have started laying bricks on the 3rd chalet and digging has begun for the foundations of the 4th house.

The rainy season starts at the beginning of November so the plan is to have 6 chalets built by then which will be fantastic! These 6 chalets will have a similar design to the 1st chalet, with an interior wall possibly being moved forward in the sitting room to make this room slightly smaller to allow for an extra small bedroom.

Ellen, Hattie and Jenny arrived from England to help at the site during July and August. Ellen and Hattie are civil engineers and Jenny is a teacher. They did a full survey of the site – they levelled the mountain so that they could figure out the direction that the water travels during the rainy season so that the water can be captured and stored to use in the dry season. They also helped with the building of the 2nd chalet. Let’s hear it for the girls!!!!

From 15 to 21 September 2008 Ziso and Charlton are attending an agricultural course. This will provide an excellent opportunity for them to learn about different aspects of farming such as setting up a chicken run, planting crops, vegetables and fruit trees, learning about farm management etc. This is invaluable for the smooth running of Oasis Village as the aim in the long run would be for Oasis Village to become self sufficient, providing more opportunities for employment and teaching the older children important skills and trades.

I hope you are as excited about the project as I am! If you would like to find out any more information please email me at oasisvillagendola@yahoo.co.uk.

Thanks for your interest and support
Annalisa.
If you get a chance check out the new pictures in the photo gallery for the summer of 2008!

It's hard to believe that a month has passed since we have returned to Zambia! Most of the day is spent at the building site. The second house is very near completion, it's at ream beam level. We are busy making bricks that will be used to complete the third house. We are also preparing to dig the foundation for the fourth house.

For the past eight months there have been 3 Zambian men living and working on the site. Thanks to the fantastic monetary support of the people in N Ireland plans are underway to increase the labour force to meet the current work load.

15 June 2008 marks a very special day - It's been exactly one year since the first bricks were made on the site and the work began. A fundraiser has been organized for the week commencing 15 June and will run all week. The purpose of the fundraiser is to raise money to help pay for an electric fence around the site to make it secure. Once the fence has been erected we hope to be able to start moving orphans into the finished houses. Our target is £5,000!

The plan is to host coffee parties in the workplace or at home, people will be tempted with scones and tray bakes and will be able to give a donation to the work, we really want to spread the good news about Oasis Village and thought this was a good opportunity to do it! If you feel that you could host a coffee party during that week please email Annalisa on oasisvillagendola@yahoo.co.uk and she can send you a poster with further details.
Thanks again for your support, it is greatly appreciated.

Ziso, Nicki, Zach and Zoe