You might remember a few months back we mentioned that our recent Tough Mudder fundraising efforts were being put towards installing two rainwater tanks for homes in the Community Based Living programme in Gisenyi, Rwanda (catch up here if you missed it!). Well, we recently met up with Karen & Charles, co-founders of The Point Foundation and all round super heroes, to bring you a really, really lovely update....brace yourselves.
For anyone not familiar, we work closely with the The Point Foundation as part of our ethical scheme - a wonderful charity supporting vulnerable members of the communities that bring us our tea. Thanks to on pack donations from our everyday brew, we fully fund teapigs house – a safe house which provides medical support, accommodation, nutrition, and emotional encouragement to 7 young adults and children with disabilities. The Point Foundation further supports 3 other houses which all together supports 24 local children with disabilities, giving them a safe and supportive living environment.
Last year in a bid to raise some extra funds, team teapigs took on Tough Mudder where we raised just shy of £4,000! After a few chats with Karen & Charles, we all decided the money would be best spent installing two 5,000L rainwater tanks. Since then, Karen and Charles have been out to Rwanda and updated us on their progress and we're thrilled to tell you that not only are the two tanks up and running, but thanks to additional donations from Caffe Praego Coffee Company (and a very rainy season) they were able to install 2 more tanks, all of which filled up within the first week! 
Rain harvesting is proving to be a real time and money saver at the Community Living Programme. In Gisenyi, water mains are typically costly and erratic, while a local public water supply is a 2 mile walk away. The new tanks ensure that water is not only free, but readily accessible and can even become a source of income for the community. The local Ubumwe Community Centre helped organise the building work & installations while the Point Foundation helped oversee progress. The tanks journeyed from Kigali, Rwanda 240km to Gisenyi, and the Ubumwe Community Center created metal stands for the tanks with cement and rocks underneath to hold them safely and securely in place. It was a bit of a challenge and required a lot of heavy lifting power as each tank weighed 5 tonnes!
thank you!
We wanted to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who donated to our Tough Mudder fundraiser - hopefully you can see the amazing impact your contribution is going to have on the day to day lives of people living in this community. We're definitely not done quite yet, and currently looking to take on another team challenge later this year to raise more funds - if you've got any suggestions, we're all ears! Leave us a comment or tag us on twitter letting us know what challenge we can take on next!
Interested in more information about our ethical scheme?
- Shop our everyday brew - a percentage of all sales of our signatre blend directly support the wonderful work carried out by The Point Foundation.
- Read all about our ethical scheme here!
- Read our last update from the teapigs house here!
