Hello everybody
We are excited because last Thursday 27th of November we sent the first container to our project in Uganda, the “Artisans Support and Training Centre” (ASTC). We expect that in the middle of January the container will be arriving to Uganda, just when our partners John and Francesca are going to give support and advice to the WORI people in the building of the workshop. Before, on 21st of December, our partner Simon will be coming back to Uganda after the three months training in the Belfast workshop. For that purpose, we sent in this container 55 sewing machines, about 6000 tools, all the indispensable materials for training (like cloth, thread and books) and 7 bicycles which will be used by the mechanics who Simon will train when he will be back in Uganda. That mechanics won’t probably live near the workshop, so TFS want to provide them the transport to it according with the ethics of the organization about the respect of the environment.
We don’t want to forget that this container was dedicated to the memory of Natania Hagen, who was a TFS Downpatrick volunteer until a few months ago. It was a very special moment to have their family and friends with us in the shipment and we want to say thanks again to them. We did a little tribute to her in the container painting.
Finally, we want to talk you about the day of the shipment because we had the company of representatives of the Ugandan and Chinese community in Northern Ireland, the Falls Women Centre and the NI parliament representative Anna Lo as well. We wanted to use the shipment for say no to racism and promote the elimination of walls between cultures, ethnicities, religions and every human group. We spent a very good time together and we expect to do it again in the future. 
The next moths will be interesting and very important for TFS with the beginning of the work in the ASTC and we will inform you about everything.