Thank you so much for giving!

This week the blog is about you - all the supporters over the last couple of months who have become sponsors of our children.

Our Give to Receive Sponsorship drive has been a wonderful success, and as we officially close it we know that there are so many people out there who really care for the kids. Your money will allow the orphanage staff and us at The Small Things the peace of mind of knowing that our work is sustainable and that the funds for the children's care will keep coming. We are all very grateful.

Sponsors of children who have just moved into our pilot house can have the satisfaction of knowing that these kids are now in school and coming to the end of their first week. Here they all are outside school on their first day - we hope to have a picture of them in their uniforms very soon:

From left: Issak, Pray, Saimoni (Bekka's son), Auntie, Loveness, Queen and Anna.

Sponsors of the younger children are helping to sustain the work done by the mamas here at the orphanage, making sure that these under-5s get everything they need to keep growing up healthily:

Over the last few months, since we rolled out our sponsorship program in earnest, we have gone from having 21 monthly sponsors to having 58! We are delighted to announce that after our last minute appeal the other day we have achieved our target - every single one of the orphanage and pilot house children now has at least one sponsor, and the pilot house kids are fully covered so they could start school. We also have a sponsor for Fanuel, making it possible for him to continue living with his mother in the community. The sponsorship drive has been a huge success, so thank you to everyone who has made it possible.

We're very excited by the fact that our new sponsors are from all over the world, making us a truly international organisation. We have sponsors in Australia, Canada, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the UK and the US. Riz Kaiser has kindly created this wonderful map for us that shows how widely our supporters are now spread - asante sana to you all!