A HUGE thank you to the four who ran and their very generous supporters. In total over £5,500 has been raised for Thusanani which is a staggering amount that will make a real difference out in South Africa. Thank you!!

The Great British Duck Race 2007 will be held on Sunday 2nd September 2007. This event aims to send 165,000 rubber ducks down a 1km stretch of the River Thames near Hampton Court Palace and in doing so, set a new World Record and raise over £500,000 for charity.
Thusanani has registered with this inspired event to help raise half a million pounds for UK charities.

Each duck must be ‘adopted’ by a supporter – who then becomes eligible to win a prize of £10,000. So to take part, become a record breaker and support Thusanani please go to our charity page and adopt a duck!

And now Jamie has set up his fundraising page too!

Massive thanks to Adrian, Michelle, Jamie and Martin who are all running the British 10K London Run on Sunday 1st July, in aid of Thusanani. They are all wanting to raise as much money as possible to help those on the ground in South Africa continue and extend the amazing work they are doing. To make it easy for you to sponsor them, both Adrian and Michelle have created fundraising pages on JustGiving. Please help encourage them through their training by giving generously! We will keep you posted on their progress!!!

Further to some civilised email exchanges with JustGiving and Colin Blythe – and some comedy worthy, aggressive ones from South Africa - it seems that an error was made when setting up Colin’s fundraising page. He didn’t actually intend the funds to come to Thusanani but instead to Thusananga (of the aggressive email exchange). To which end we are in the process of gaining trustee approval to transfer funds out to SA. Thusanani are obviously very disappointed not to be receiving these much needed funds, but are pleased that the plight of AIDS and orphans in South Africa is being highlighted by people like Colin.

A HUGE thank you to Colin Blythe who ran the Flora London Marathon in aid of Thusanani. We hope your feet are not too sore and ‘the wall’ was not too painful. THANK YOU for all the money you have raised, we promise to put it to the best possible use.

Are we, in one of the most ‘developed’ countries, setting a good example? On the back of two recent stories I think the answer is a resounding NO.

First we have the story of Dumisani. Both the parents of this child are HIV positive and returning them to Malawi, where access to treatment is unavailable, would in effect have been a death sentence for him too. Despite the government’s determination to go ahead regardless, their decision was overturned.

Secondly there is the revelation that the agreement made at the G8 summit at Gleneagles in 2005 has fallen largely by the wayside. Britain may have increased its aid donations last year, but many of the richest countries have actually cut their contributions (the USA cut their’s by a fifth!).

So is all the talk of helping developing countries just that – talk? Let’s hope not.

Find out how much your charity will lose due to the change in income tax bands here.