About TOAD
TOAD is a charity committed to raise funds ourselves and also encourage others to raise funds on our behalf. We then use this cash to fund suitable projects operated by other organisations in the developing world that have the expertise, knowledge, resources and personnel to run the project in an efficient and effective manner.
Fundraising
Is the most important part of our operation – without it we cannot do anything to support development. We also have a strong belief that fundraising should be fun and we really encourage everyone to get stuck in, organise their own activities and events and have a great time doing it.
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We believe that fundraising should not be a chore partly because if people enjoy themselves they are much more likely to keep raising funds in the future. So whilst we welcome money from all quarters our emphasis is on Fun Raising and we encourage everyone to get involved in this.
We also believe that there are lots of people who might not have lots of spare cash but what they do have spare they like to spend on having a good time so what we want to do is combine social activities with fund raising and kill two birds with one stone.
In this way we feel that the younger part of society which can easily be overlooked has an important part to play in developing our global community. We feel that through encouragement and support not only can they make a significant contribution to improving others lives but that by doing so they will develop as individuals and groups and hopefully have a cracking time doing it.
Funding Projects
TOAD supports projects that will prevent or relieve poverty, improve the level of health hygiene and sanitation or increase the standard and provision of education. In effect this means a very wide variety of projects can be supported. With every project we want as many of the most needy people to get as much benefit from the funding as possible.
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Projects and funding proposals are submitted to TOAD and then the trustees make decisions about whether funding will be provided on the cost and merits of the individual project as well as the credentials of the organisation. TOAD has set out its own criteria within the confines of charity law and with guidance from the Charity Commission about the projects that we will support. This includes the following principles:
- Where possible that all projects that we support are environmentally and economically sustainable.
- That all projects we support are sympathetic to local customs and sensibilities.
- That all projects that we support do not violate human rights.
- That we work with local communities to ensure their needs are met.
- That all projects we support do not discriminate on who will receive the public benefit i.e. do not discriminate against age, race, sexuality, gender or disability.
Where we work
TOAD has a global remit but the trustees of the charity have decided that for the first few years we will concentrate on supporting the Mtwara region of Tanzania in east Africa. It is an incredibly poor and undeveloped region that really is in need of support.
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We chose Tanzania and the Mtwara region and in particular the Mtwara Rural district as the trustees have experience of visiting and working in the region. Tanzania possesses some of the iconic images of Africa – Mount Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti Plain, the Masai and Zanzibar – but despite this it remains one of the poorest countries in the world. The Mtwara region is one of the poorest and most remote regions in Tanzania suffering from very low investment and poor communications and infrastructure.
In the Mtwara rural district almost everyone survives from subsistence farming which provides very little income and makes them very susceptible to the effects of poor harvests. The standard of education is very low with literacy rates of only 24% and the latest estimated income is only £0.20 ($0.30) per day which is only a quarter of the UN poverty threshold. There is insufficient medical care and a large number of people suffer from TB, malaria, AIDS and other diseases combined with poor nutrition and the fact that less than half of the population has access to clean water means that the average life expectancy is only 45 years.
Who we are
TOAD was set up in May 2009 by a group of friends in Salisbury with the initial aim of funnelling funds from a group of churches in Salisbury to projects in the Mtwara region. The situation soon changed with regards to the churches but everyone in TOAD realised that we were onto something and wanted to continue to organise some of the social fundraising events we had done in the past for other charities. The trustees of TOAD are younger than the average charity’s board of trustees but within the group there is a wide selection of skills and experience. Everyone has had previous experience of fundraising for charities and over half of the group have spent some time working for charities in Africa with a collective time of just under four years of field experience.
