A Daily Journal Of My Visit To Africa In August 2006
by Ian White.
SUMMER 2006
‘Seed Sowers’ is a Christian Charitable Trust and was founded by Mike Ansell and his wife Jenny,
of Buckfastleigh Devon, following a visit to Malawi in 1994. It became a Registered Charity in the year 2000 and has
Trustees both in the UK and in Africa.
Whilst visiting Malawi, one of the poorest countries in Africa, Mike saw what poor quality water
supplies these villages depended upon and the distances the women had to carry
the water. Mike looked into sinking a Bore Hole within one of the villages so
that they could have a supply of fresh clean water.
The Agencies he approached wanted to charge a small fortune to sink a Bore Hole. However, Mike was told
by an Engineer out there that the equipment to do the job could be purchased for a fraction of the cost and so Mike himself an engineer, went ahead and
bought the drilling equipment and began sinking Bore Holes himself, with labour
provided by the villagers.
When other Agencies got to know what they were doing, they wanted to come onboard and so it grew and grew. Over the past twelve years Mike tells me that more than 500 bore Holes have been established
in the area.
Mike has continued to visit Malawi each year since that first trip in 1994. As the project has
steadily grown, ‘Seed Sowers’ have recently developed a programme of supplying nutritional
products and advice to improve the health of these communities and have now expanded
their work into Zambia.
Around last Christmas time I was fortunate enough to
get into conversation with Colin Smith, a member of the party scheduled to go
out there in July/August of this year. Unfortunately Colin had been visiting Peru on another project which he is
involved with and he developed Altitude Sickness and therefore couldn’t go to Africa. Colin put me in touch with Mike, who
then sent me details of the trip and told me that I would be welcome to join the party, so I seized the opportunity.