Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Msizi Africa
Msizi Africa is an international charitable organisation set up by Lucy Caslon in 2007. Msizi means 'helper' in Zulu. The charity, based in South London and originally named Mants'ase Children's Home UK, is registered with the UK Charity commission and provides children in Lesotho with nutritious food. Msizi Africa actively supports and closely works with a number of local projects and collaborates with Letsema, a network of service providers working with orphans and vulnerable children in Lesotho. Since October 2015, Msizi Africa Lesotho has been registered as a Lesotho registered charitable organisation.
Lucy Caslon first heard about Mants'ase Children's Home, an orphanage in Lesotho, in news reports of Prince Harry's visit to the home. At the end of an extensive trip through Africa in 2006 she decided to work at the orphanage as a volunteer. During this time she recognized that while the children in the home were fed, the food was not optimal in terms of nutrition and healthiness especially taking into consideration that many of the 50 children living in the home suffered from HIV/AIDS infection and other health issues. She received financial help from family and friends back in the UK which allowed her to buy fruit, vegetables, meat and fish to complement the children's normal diet of maize meals and cabbage. Realizing the positive effects of this healthier nutrition on the children's wellbeing Lucy Caslon founded the Mants'ase Children's Home UK charity after she arrived back in London. It was first set up specifically to benefit the lives of the children at the Mants'ase orphanage. Later the charity was re-branded as Msizi Africa as the support was extended to children in South Africa and Zambia.[citation needed]
Msizi Africa grew significantly after Lucy Caslon became one of eight winners of Vodafones 2008's World of Difference programme which allowed her to work full-time for her charity. Impressed by her success one of her corporate supporters decided to match Vodafone's scheme and continue to pay her salary for 2010 and 2011 enabling the charity in the following years to help to relieve the hardship of around thousand children in Africa, where the AIDS pandemic has left many without parents or an extended family. Besides providing food Msizi Africa also repairs the houses of children who live on their own to ensure safer living conditions for them.
In 2008, the Cape Town charity Beautiful Gate had to care for additional several hundred mothers with babies and young children due to the xenophobic attacks aimed towards foreign nationals living in South Africa which erupted in May and June of that year.[citation needed] Msizi Africa donated funds to feed these families for several days.[citation needed]
Msizi Africa has in the past also supported Umthombo, a non-profit organisation based in Durban, South Africa, by providing three meals a day for hundreds of homeless children in the city.
Lucy Caslon attended the Christ's Hospital school from 1992 to 1999 and started organising fundraising events as a student. After graduating from Royal Holloway, University of London in 2003 with a BA in History she worked in the charity sector for three years, first in the events team at Marie Curie Cancer Care and eighteen months later as corporate fundraiser with Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths.[citation needed]
In 2006, she spent three months traveling East, Central and Southern Africa before volunteering for four months, from August to December, at the Mants'ase Children's Home. After her return to London in 2007 she founded a charity in order to raise money to continue the food improvement project she had started during her time in Lesotho.[citation needed] She spend her evenings and weekends to raise funds while working full-time for eighteen months as Team Secretary EMEA Hospitality for DTZ.[citation needed]
Besides winning 2008 the World of Difference initiative of the Vodafone Foundation she was shortlisted for the Red and Cosmopolitan magazine 'Woman of the Year' awards in the same year. In 2011 Lucy Caslon was shortlisted for the Dods and Scottish Widows 'Women in Public Life Awards' in the category "Voluntary Sector Achiever of the Year".
Hub AI
Msizi Africa AI simulator
(@Msizi Africa_simulator)
Msizi Africa
Msizi Africa is an international charitable organisation set up by Lucy Caslon in 2007. Msizi means 'helper' in Zulu. The charity, based in South London and originally named Mants'ase Children's Home UK, is registered with the UK Charity commission and provides children in Lesotho with nutritious food. Msizi Africa actively supports and closely works with a number of local projects and collaborates with Letsema, a network of service providers working with orphans and vulnerable children in Lesotho. Since October 2015, Msizi Africa Lesotho has been registered as a Lesotho registered charitable organisation.
Lucy Caslon first heard about Mants'ase Children's Home, an orphanage in Lesotho, in news reports of Prince Harry's visit to the home. At the end of an extensive trip through Africa in 2006 she decided to work at the orphanage as a volunteer. During this time she recognized that while the children in the home were fed, the food was not optimal in terms of nutrition and healthiness especially taking into consideration that many of the 50 children living in the home suffered from HIV/AIDS infection and other health issues. She received financial help from family and friends back in the UK which allowed her to buy fruit, vegetables, meat and fish to complement the children's normal diet of maize meals and cabbage. Realizing the positive effects of this healthier nutrition on the children's wellbeing Lucy Caslon founded the Mants'ase Children's Home UK charity after she arrived back in London. It was first set up specifically to benefit the lives of the children at the Mants'ase orphanage. Later the charity was re-branded as Msizi Africa as the support was extended to children in South Africa and Zambia.[citation needed]
Msizi Africa grew significantly after Lucy Caslon became one of eight winners of Vodafones 2008's World of Difference programme which allowed her to work full-time for her charity. Impressed by her success one of her corporate supporters decided to match Vodafone's scheme and continue to pay her salary for 2010 and 2011 enabling the charity in the following years to help to relieve the hardship of around thousand children in Africa, where the AIDS pandemic has left many without parents or an extended family. Besides providing food Msizi Africa also repairs the houses of children who live on their own to ensure safer living conditions for them.
In 2008, the Cape Town charity Beautiful Gate had to care for additional several hundred mothers with babies and young children due to the xenophobic attacks aimed towards foreign nationals living in South Africa which erupted in May and June of that year.[citation needed] Msizi Africa donated funds to feed these families for several days.[citation needed]
Msizi Africa has in the past also supported Umthombo, a non-profit organisation based in Durban, South Africa, by providing three meals a day for hundreds of homeless children in the city.
Lucy Caslon attended the Christ's Hospital school from 1992 to 1999 and started organising fundraising events as a student. After graduating from Royal Holloway, University of London in 2003 with a BA in History she worked in the charity sector for three years, first in the events team at Marie Curie Cancer Care and eighteen months later as corporate fundraiser with Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths.[citation needed]
In 2006, she spent three months traveling East, Central and Southern Africa before volunteering for four months, from August to December, at the Mants'ase Children's Home. After her return to London in 2007 she founded a charity in order to raise money to continue the food improvement project she had started during her time in Lesotho.[citation needed] She spend her evenings and weekends to raise funds while working full-time for eighteen months as Team Secretary EMEA Hospitality for DTZ.[citation needed]
Besides winning 2008 the World of Difference initiative of the Vodafone Foundation she was shortlisted for the Red and Cosmopolitan magazine 'Woman of the Year' awards in the same year. In 2011 Lucy Caslon was shortlisted for the Dods and Scottish Widows 'Women in Public Life Awards' in the category "Voluntary Sector Achiever of the Year".