![ValDodsworthMBE750](/Images/content/213/1042620.jpg)
Norfolk founder takes up Tools with a Mission
The charity Tools With a Mission is offering an opportunity to churches to hear about its work, and Val Dodsworth is available to speak on its behalf.
Val is the founder of the House of Genesis charity was awarded an MBE in 2015 for her services to the homeless in Norwich. She is the Norfolk representative for TWAM and will welcome invitations from churches and other groups to talk about the charity.
TWAM reconditions second-hand tools and sends them to poor countries. As churches restart after lockdown, it is shifting back into top gear. Based in Ipswich, the charity does up second-hand tools of all sorts and sends them to Africa, Asia and eastern Europe to lift families which have little or no income out of poverty.
The charity was founded in the late Seventies by Jack Norwood, a deacon at Belle Vue Baptist Church in Southend, and John Bennett, a teacher from Waterlooville. Jack was asked by the Baptist Men’s Society to head up a project making incubators and went to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for a year to develop them.
John became interested and involved pupils from his school collecting all kinds of agricultural tools, and under his supervision they cleaned, renovated and painted them. The pupils organised a sponsored event and with the money raised sent a shipment sent to David Stuckley, a missionary working in DRC.
John realised that there must be others in the same situation as David, trying to pass on skills to people who badly needed them, but with little in the way of actual tools. He shared the idea to the Baptist Men’s Movement, who adopted the idea and launched Tools With A Mission in 1984.
The charity now works in 17 countries, including Uganda, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe and Kenya.
You can contact Val Dodsworth on 07758 208470 or dodsworthval@gmail.com.
For further information about TWAM please see the website at www.twam.uk or ring 01473 210220.
Pictured above is Val Dodsworth
Eldred Willey, 07/06/2021