Before we move on, a big THANK YOU!

Hi everyone!

This week, we thought it would be nice if our blog covered some of the projects which The Small Things has completed over the last two years.  We are about to move over to a new website: it's looking fantastic and we are really excited about it!  We couldn't have reached this point without all of your support, and the things we have achieved are just as much down to you: your talking about us to your friends, reading our blog, liking our facebook page, donating money towards our projects, doing crazy challenges to fundraise for us and generally being interested and supportive of what we are doing!

So, we thought we would take this time to say a massive...

THANK YOU!!

Thank you for helping us support the Mamas and the incredible work they do by raising their wages.  Since June 2011, we have been sending out booster payments which are equal to 10% of their salary every three months.  These women are the heart of the orphanage and the kids' lives and we are very happy to have been able to do this.

Mama Pendo playing with Dainessi, who has now headed off to boarding school.

Thank you for allowing us to provide the kids with the vitamins and formula milk (for babies) to allow them to remain strong and healthy and develop as they should.  The vitamins we give are iron and vitamin D, as we observed both rickets and iron deficiency in the children.  The babies get these in liquid form, and the older kids get 'sweets' (it's great that this is how they view their chewable vitamins as it makes them very eager to take them!).

Thank you for supporting our 'Project Light Up the Night', which saw the orphanage completely rewired to prevent a reoccurrence of the terrible fire in 2009 which would have killed all of the babies under 9 months had it not been for the heroic efforts of Mama Cantate, which carried all of the babies to safety.  Thank you for keeping the kids and Mamas and volunteers safer by making sure this will not happen again.  The solar lighting your donations helped us install means that the work these people do doesn't need to happen by the light of a candle or gas lamp when the power goes out, which makes life a lot easier!

Here is our appeal video from 'Project Light up the Night.' Hearing the story of the accident from Cantate herself is a great reminder of how important this project was.

Thank you for providing the kids and Mamas with fresh, clean drinking water through 'Project MAJI' ('maji' meaning 'water').  The mechanical filters you allowed us to install can clean over 5,000 gallons of water a day without electricity.  They do not need replacement filters and were placed directly into the orphanage plumbing and so were the most sustainable ones we could find.  They mean that the kids no longer need to be denied water when they are thirsty because the boiled water (the previous method of purification) is still too hot to drink.

Thank you for providing the means for us to employ Mama Linda, who came in as part of our one-to-one care programme that gives the newest, tiniest little babies all the extra attention they need. Anyone who has seen on Facebook how Peace has thrived will know how important one-to-one care can be and how much of a difference it can make.

There are many gorgeous pictures of Peace, but this has to get into the Top 10 for cuteness. He's so much bigger now - scroll back a bit on our Facebook page for proof.

Thank you for allowing us to plant a garden and provide chickens, which keep on giving and ensure that the orphanage is supplied with a plentiful supply of fresh vegetables and meat.  This helps to keep costs down and means that the orphanage is more self sufficient.  In addition, the kids get to eat lots of nutritional food which helps keep them healthy!

The Small Things has had an amazing couple of years and you have given us incredible support. We hope you will continue to do so as we move forward onto a new website and a slightly new chapter, along with a redesigned blog that will be coming soon.