For some years now, the woodturning club of which I'm secretary (East Yorkshire Woodturners), has supported 'Tools With a Mission' ('TWAM'), which refurbishes a wide range of tools, put them into kits, and sends them out to Africa where it trains men and women to learn skills to enable them to make a living for themselves and their families and to educate their children to give them a better start in life, rather than to exist on handouts. As well as kits for carpenters, electricians, mechanics, bricklayers etc, it trains men in tailoring and women in dressmaking, providing them with manual and electric sewing machines.
To put into perspective the scale of the operation, they send around 16 containers filled with a total of around 225 tonnes of tools every year. These tools range from sewing machines and knitting machines to carpentry tools and mechanics tools. In 2021, TWAM sent 14 containers full of life-transforming tools to Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Almost 10,000 tool kits in all.
TWAM have collectors in most parts of the UK. You can ascertain if there is a collector near you by entering your postcode on their website. You can either take the tools to the collector or they’ll collected them from you. They’re sent down to the refurbishing centre at Ipswich, where they’re put into kits. Power tools are also acceptable – not just hand tools. Last month, as well as saws, hammers, chisels, screwdrivers, files, spanners etc, we took several electric drills, a router, a circular saw, a chop-saw, a lathe and ten planes ranging from small block planes to a No 7.
A couple of pics below of some of the items out Club members donated in August.
Tools sent by TWAM to Africa in 2021:
Tools Sent in 2021 | Tools with a Mission
How to donate tools:
Donate Tools | Tools with a Mission
What each tool kit contains:
Tools with a Mission | What's in a toolkit?
IK hope that might be worth thinking about.
David.