LSU was founded to help sustain TIlinanu Orphanage, and keep the dream alive.Tilinanu is now a secure building and loving home and our volunteers have helped us from day one.

• Vaccinated 70,000 people
• Offer medical treatment and advice saving many lives
• Re-build homes and schools
• Provide teachers for over 4000 pupils
• Teaching girls to a standard to preform at world recognised festival lake of stars
• Build bore holes for clean, drinkable water
• Provide skills workshops; teaching English, computer skills, Internet training, sewing and carpentry
• Dispense micro-loans to families in the community, enabling them to start their own businesses

As well as that, we contribute 1000’s of kg of donations to people within the community that need help.

Hi Everybody, this year’s Party for the Princesses will be held on Sat 24th November so “Lets Get the Party Started”!  at our Christmas Extravaganza!?

We have got a great night lined up – Ben Mills from the X Factor,  Michael Jackson Tribute Show and of course the fabulous and brilliant  Roosters together with a 3 course supper.

Click here to download the invitation – tables being reserved now –  Tickets £65.00 each –  tables of 10 .  All proceeds to Tilinanu Orphanage (Registered Charity 1133208)

A great night is promised to all!

Thanks for your support.
Love Alice, Nina and Yvonne x

Lindsay and Robert Jelley have very kindly invited us to make use of the marquee in their garden on Sunday 22nd July to help with the ongoing upkeep of Tilinanu.

Lindsay is staging an Art Exhibition and we will be holding a Vintage Tea Party 3.30 – 6.30pm with music, and a Pimms and Champagne bar .

It would be great if you were able to join us –  the invitation is attached.

Tickets £15 – only available in advance from Yvonne at Latimer Design 0116 2301166 07740 724491 or Yvonneatlovetilinanu@hotmail.co.uk.

Look forward to hearing from you soon.? ?Love Yvonne x

(Download PDF here)

VISIT VENUE WEBSITE HERE…

Gomez falling asleep on me.

My birthday.

Seeing the girls playing netball with real goal posts.

The girls praying

Living with mercy

The lake

Church

Not as good parts

Maybe just the food.

From a volunteers perspective at Tilianu i have had one of the best experiences of my life. It was completely different to anything that I have done before. I really enjoyed my first two weeks living in Mercy’s house as i felt like i was really involved all the time with the family and the orphanage. Although when we moved in to our own house i felt more settled, i think that my time at the Mercy’s really improved my experience of Africa and if possible all volunteers should try to experience it.

Another strength of the volunteer programme at tilinanu is that you get a free reign on what you wish to spend the money that you raised on, therefore you can really personalise your project. For example I went to Tilinanu with the idea that i wanted to do something with disabled children, and Alice was able to provide me with many opportunities to reach that goal. For example i was able to attend a clinic that provided physiotherapy for children with serapolsey, and i was able to get actively involved. I was also able to teach a child in the village that had severe learning difficulties and give him some one -on-one attention. I was also able to use the money I had risen to build the girls a play park and netball hoops. This was a really fun project as i was able to design, but, build and paint my own play park. It was brilliant.

My favourite part of my experience this summer was my birthday as we had a proper kid’s party with face paint, and I was even able to rent out a bouncy castle! It was a really good day, and the smiles and looks of awe on the girl’s faces made it one of the best days ever.
If you would like to ask me any questions please email me on katie.gerighty@live.co.uk

The conditions that they live in are indescribable. To show a little insight, in my opinion; they are neglected, abused, unappreciated and are left to live in inhumane conditions as a mockery of their community. Simply – they are FORGOTTEN. It is unclear to why this is; the basic understanding that we gathered was due to ‘witch craft’. Although there beliefs are not to be dismissed it was not possible to neither except nor understand.

What we did

Prior to the trip we loaded a 10ton trick with over 50 Tin sheets, Hundreds of nails, large timbers Mesquite nets, blankets, and Kilos of donation clothes for Men, Women, Children and Babies. Although we didn’t know quite how we were going to do the roofs we approached it with ‘where there is a will there is a way’ and threw out selves in the deep end. We were assited by a man who was known to the Orphanage (from working along side the Mcandawire family) showed us around the village and ‘said’ he was taking us to the houses that were most in need. To little surprise it appeared that many of the houses that we were shown had some form of relationship with the man, this was hard to understand as well as frustrating as all we were trying to achieve a goal that was pure and there was no need for corruption. We soon managed to get over this problem by simply asking people, ‘ who is most venerable and who is most in need’ This is when the project really took off.

The first house:

Was more of a learning curve as she was a grandmother to a Tilinanu girl who had just had her roof re-strewed in preparation for the rain. Although it has been re-done it was a thin layer and gaps still appeared in the bedroom where children were sleeping so we iron sheeted only over the bed room as we felt that there were more houses that were more in need.

The second:

This was a small village that had children everywhere; we were welcomed with smiles, waves and intrigued faces. There was a grandmother who was living on her own. She was a placid lady who had no means of fixing her roof for the rains. We sheeted the whole house, provided her with a mosquito net and blanked. The most beautiful thing was that the villagers were up on the roof helping and teaching the local way of roofing as well as learning from the British ways of doing things. With the first house we were trying to do what they wanted in a style that they were used to, but it became apparent that mixing the two diverse sets of skills was much more beneficial in the long run. The women from the community were helping to clean in and around the house. This was just the effect that we wanted, we wanted to integrate and for them to help them selves apposed to waiting for people to do it for you.

We amended five houses, protecting them from the forthcoming rainy season and providing them with blankets and mosquito nets. As well as integrating ourselves with the surrounding community with donations and talks of what we are aiming to achieve. We hope that we were listened to and when we return to visit and offer more help that our work already done is still remaining. My dream, although we are certainly running before we can walk, is to encourage hard working volunteers to carry on this project.

‘Strummerville’ is a registered charity that gives support to aspiring musicians and help to projects that help change the world through music’

They most certainly adhere to there mission and we personally know and have seen how they can help change Malawi through music. As mentioned previously Tilinanu has always worked ‘food to mouth’ with minimal amount of room for greater vision. Through the beauty of volunteers and the success of fundraising; has allowed room for reflection. Strummerville allowed us to reach an unimaginable level – they funded the whole music project that consists of a two tiered stage and an indoor and outdoor educational space.

This creation is something that will change this community forever.

Music is certainly something that Africans are naturally blessed with but have very small amounts of opportunity to express their raw talent. Strummerville have provided ample space for this. The music centre has many musical instruments and freedom of originality. Nina Pulford did an incredible job of building this on behalf of Strummerville. The building has been designed to a phenomenal level where the space allowed for the most use. She enabled the girls to have music lessons on drums, base and guitar and has changed their musical legacy forever! This space can also be used as an outdoor learning centre for all other academic topics as well as play.

Strummerville allowed Tilinanu to become apparent to the rest of Malawi through organizing their performance at ‘Lake of Stars’ (the biggest festival in Africa). That experience I think will change the girls of Tilinanu forever. Despite it being a Malawian festival they never knew how beautiful their voices are and how much it would be enjoyed. They had a life changing experience and we were very proud of how gregarious the angels are. It was fabulous to see the girls excitement on the bus of being able to stare out of the window for hours on the way to the festival, and watch their faces of amazement as they visually explored their country that was so unfamiliar from just seeing the village. They played twice, once for 30 minutes, and the second time for nearly an hour! (footage on facebook and the website). We hope to play again next year.

Katie has created a play area within Tilinanu for the angels to play and express themselves on as well as the local community to play with. Katie has build two sets of swings and revamped a sea saw and a slide; as well as having a welder make her two new netball posts that are the correct size and measurements. She has provided knitting needles for the girls as this is their new obsession!!!!! It was Katie’s 18^th Birthday whilst working at Tilinanu and there was no better way to celebrate it than to hire a ‘jumping castle’, playing lots of music and give them sweets, crisps and drinks that are a rarity to the girls. The girls were magically happy and shouted ‘jumping castle’ all day. Katie has been a pleasure to have at Tilinanu and has again re-illustrated how important and beneficial volunteers are to Tilinanu.

All money raised by volunteers is encouraged to be personally pumped back into Tilinanu through their own ideas and projects. If any were to remain is used for water and electricity bills. 2011 marks the 1^st year of The Tilinanu Volunteer Program which so far has been hugely successful, for Tilinanu, and for the girls and boys that have worked so hard. Each have left their own legacy at the Orphanage local hospital and school. Please do get in contact if you require further details of the volunteer scheme.

Thankful to the great publicity about Tilinanu in Leicester and Lilongwe, there has been such a strong connection built by the volunteers with the angels of Tilinanu. Cat Oliver and Luca Bogen are returning volunteers who offer so much to the girls and their well being; they are a true asset to Tilinanu. Cat and Luca encouraged talented Alex Power who was already working on a project within Lilongwe to come and visit where she taught them new songs and creatively helped the girls personalise their beds with a photo collage of themselves, allowing the girls to really express their identity. Tilinanu is so grateful for all their time, effort, belief and love for Tilinanu.

Although I’m sure they would like their effort to go un-published Tilinanu must show their appreciation and amazement of Fran, Phoebe, and Phil’s efforts to do the first shipment to Tilinanu from the UK of donations (if anyone is interested in shipment please get in contact we have so many computers that we would like to get the girls).

Tilinanu is now moving close to self sustainability just as we have always dreamed. Mercy and her late husband have done such a phenomenal job in teaching the full time carer how to care for so many girls as well as assisting the girls with their development that is often so tough. Mercy is a superb mother to all of the girls and it is exhilarating watching them grow into respectful, determined and ambitious young ladies.

Please keep checking Tilinanu Facebook, Travel blog, and web site for fresh news…