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Dear Donor,
We are delighted that the British High Commissioner to South Africa Rt Hon Paul Boateng, has
agreed to chair the ZANE presentation and dinner on Thursday 2 July and that World Affairs Editor
to the BBC, John Simpson has agreed to be our speaker. You should receive a personalised invitation in the post but if it does not arrive soon please see and print a generic version here.
We are most grateful to you for all the support you have given to us over the years.
ZANE is now in its seventh year and now it has gathered an amazing team of former bankers,
farmers, pharmacists and nurses and doctors, who care courageously for those who would
otherwise die a lingering death through lack of food or medicines. In essence, our work is divided
into two parts: the assistance of pensioners, often WW2 veterans or their widows and others whose
lives have been devastated by hyperinflation. You will see from our latest emergency appeal pictures that some of
them have been savagely attacked and beaten.
In this work we are effective partners in Zimbabwe to all the UK services charities, including the
British Legion.
The second part of our work is to support ZANE staff in their work in the provision of palliative care,
the mitigation of cholera and HIV/AIDS in the High Density areas of Harare.
In 2007/8, ZANE donated £300K of aid and issued some 7000 grants of money, food and medicines
to desperate people who find themselves effectively trapped in Zimbabwe.
In 2008/9 we were obliged to donate 800k, an increase to 22,000 grants. This amounted to a huge
sum for a small charity, and it stripped away our slender reserves.
Our key problem is that over the last few months the local currency has finally collapsed, so now
we are obliged to purchase essential food and medicines in US dollars. However, the pound, in
which we are obliged to raise donations has depreciated some 24.86% against the US currency,
subsequently ZANE’s costs have rocketed.
With this increase in demand for our help, and with the problems of the depreciating currency we
have today to treble the sums we raised last year, just to stand still.
So this is why we are seeking additional funds from existing donors; this is why we are obliged to
ask new donors to support ZANE yet again when they come to make their charitable donations.
Please note that we have adopted facilities that now enable donors to choose which aspect of the
ZANE work they wish to support, or of course they can donate to our general fund.
Can we reassure you that none of the donor money goes near corrupt officials; there is no waste
and no Middle Men to chip away at your giving.
To those who say that charitable money donated to help those in Africa never gets to where it is
intended to go, we say you are mistaken: it does.
Once again, this is your chance to save a life.
We hope that you will be able to attend our dinner and is this is impossible you will listen to the
DVD we will send you.
Yours sincerely
Tom Benyon
Trustee
Ten reasons to support ZANE
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