Hello Everyone – A warm welcome to the Friends of Pakati Review of 2024!
Well, 2024 has been what sports teams often call ‘a game of two halves’! The first 6 months had quite a few interesting elements to it, as you can read about here…
https://friendsofpakati.com/2024/07/10/6-month-review-for-friends-of-pakati-2024/
… but it was definitely much better in the second half of the year. Our statistics at the end of June showed we were heading for a lower number of views than even 2023, our lowest so far since we started. How things have changed since then!
What really made the difference was our stall at the Scunthorpe United off-season event – the Iron Open Day. Our stall (see the photo at the top of this post) at the event turned out initially as a decent fundraiser, netting us £160. Read all about it here:
https://friendsofpakati.com/?s=Open+day
Unbeknownst to us, one of the visitors to our stall was one of our fellow Iron fans, Sarah Dent. She contacted me, and went on to say she might be able to help with some computers for Pakati…
… to find out more about it, read here:
https://friendsofpakati.com/2024/08/18/great-news-2/
As I was planning to go to Pakati in October, Sarah’s intervention made us speed things up so that we could deliver new IT to the two schools.
I went to see the company Sarah works for & met some of her colleagues who were involved with the promised IT. Have a read here & find out what happened:
https://friendsofpakati.com/2024/09/05/an-afternoon-in-north-east-lincolnshire/
This led to a speeding up of certain things, as we had a deadline to meet – my upcoming trip to Zimbabwe. We needed to get the promised IT checked out, packaged up & sent to the shippers, called Coedma Freight International Ltd baeed in Leicester.
It also included the need to raise funds at short notice: https://friendsofpakati.com/2024/09/15/urgent-shipping-costs-funds-needed/
https://friendsofpakati.com/2024/09/21/please-keep-going/ gives more detail on what was needed & why.
From there, we got the IT donated to Zimbabwe, and delivered it to Pakati schools. Below are a number of posts which take us through the process, and how it all went:
https://friendsofpakati.com/2024/10/06/first-post-from-zimbabwe-2024/
https://friendsofpakati.com/2024/10/10/at-pakati-in-2024/
… and https://friendsofpakati.com/2024/10/13/delivered/
There are further posts about IT lessons, Primary students visiting Robert Mugabe International Airport, my own images & videos, and the sad loss of our friend Pastor Aggie Fombo recently.
In addition, we also go into what Friends of Pakati need to do next – https://friendsofpakati.com/2024/12/08/our-next-targets-for-pakati-schools/
What has been really enjoyable for me has been the continuing series of Podcasts & Vlogs, as they can be found here: https://friendsofpakati.com/friends-of-pakati-podcasts/
So, to end this review, here is a new podcast with myself & regular host, Bradley Mell. Enjoy!
Next up…
Part 2 of 3 is all about a TV programme filmed in Zimbabwe during 2023…
