About us

Our mission

Tanzania (UK) Trust mission statement

  • To encourage the church in partnership in Tanzania and UK
  • Sharing practical needs.
  • Promoting physical and mental health.
  • Advancing education and understanding.

The plan for the Health Centres is to meet the unmet health needs in local Tanzania communities that are known to us, providing diagnoses, treatments and medication that people can trust. This vision is to reach the poorest of the poor in communities, who cannot afford to pay for their medical treatments at the usual rates. We also train volunteers called “Tazama na Tunza” (Look and Care) who visit the poor and chronically sick at home, providing prayer and practical support.

We have supported mission to unreached areas in Tanzania, with monthly donations, for over 20 years now. We also meet immediate needs to those within the partnership: such as famine relief when the rains fail, payment for education or equipment where needed and ensuring that the well we drilled in 1997 is maintained and functioning, providing water for the Tazama na Tunza Health Centre.

We do this by raising awareness, prayer and money: through annual group trips, sharing information, giving talks and encouraging individual involvement. Self-sustainability of our projects is always the business goal plan and all the UK and Tanzanian national guidelines and protocols are followed.

Make a donation

Why not help our cause with a small donation, or even any old mobile phones or reading glasses? 

Core Values

We are a Christian charity, seeking to share God’s love to all we meet. We trust in God to lead us and we seek to honour Him.

Any money that is donated is paid directly to our Tanzanian partners for their specific projects. We have a strong and transparent policy for transfer of overseas funds, which is annually and visually checked.

Our only financial overheads are our online accounting system, insurance for the charity, safeguarding cover, Western Union online transfer fees and our website maintenance (www.tanzaniauk.org.uk). No salaries are paid and almost all administrative items are donated. The projects themselves are managed and run by the Capital Christian Centre and Tanzania Assemblies of God national church.

We respect the values of our hosts when we visit them in Tanzania. As we stay in their homes, we are very careful to align ourselves to their culture and church guidelines.

We have a current Memorandum of Understanding: Partnership Agreement between the Tanzania (UK) Trust and the Tanzania Assemblies of God church (TAG). “The Mission of TAG is to make people disciples of Jesus Christ, nationally and internationally, being baptized in the Holy Spirit, having spiritual fellowship, ministering contextually and thereby increasing the church.”

Our trustees and wider support team

Ruth Chorley

Trustee

Alan Smith

Trustee

Jim Solomon

Trustee

Chris Neilson

Trustee

Elizabeth Benstead

Treasurer

Ruth works as the Focused Care Lead with GP practices in Greater Manchester, reaching vulnerable and complex patients. She is married to Philip and has 3 children, all of whom are now married.The children were largely brought up in East Africa, where Philip and Ruth served with Mission Aviation Fellowship for over 7 years. Ruth lost some of her heart to Tanzania and has continued to visit there every year, epidemics allowing. Philip and the family, Simon and Emily, Naomi and Neil, Sarah and Gareth, have also returned for visits to Dodoma, Tanzania.Ruth considers the Mkuyus and the Church there as part of her extended family and has been nick-named Sungura Mkuyu (this means “rabbit” – a long story!). Her Swahili is adequate, usually by the end of her visit someone says “Oh, you’re talking like a Tanzanian now!”She has supported God’s work there for many years, as she can see the amazing effect of Jesus’s love on the whole community. Lives have been turned around, people healed, trust been built and love just seems to gently pour from the Church there. She especially loves the House of Prayer at Zeph and Samson’s Church. After joining others in giving financially through various ways for many years, she joined with Alan and Liz in starting the Tanzania (UK) Trust. Ruth enjoys life, her family, gardening, coffee-time with friends and being with Jesus’s family in UK and Tanzania.

I am a retired Local Government Officer, having worked for Manchester City Council for 41 years. On retirement I qualified to teach English to adults (Cambridge English Language Teaching of Adults).My wife, Jenny, and I are members of Hope Community Church Mottram, the sending church for Philip, Ruth and their family to Tanzania with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF). Following a pastoral visit to the Chorley family in 1992, I was so inspired by the work of MAF that I became an Area Representative for 5 years, telling churches in the North West of England about their work. I am MAF church representative. Since our first visit to Dodoma, Tanzania, in 1992, Jenny and I have had first-hand experience of working in Uganda in 1995 and made further visits to Tanzania to observe the work and help where we can in 2002, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2018.
I love my family, wife Jenny and son, Andrew and daughter-in-law Rachel, with grandchildren, Theo and Phebe. I also am a season ticket holder at Stockport County and I enjoy travel, reading, gardening, playing guitar, running, crown green bowling and table tennis.
Tanzania (UK) Trust is an ambitious and exciting project which I am honoured to be involved in and we covet the prayers and support of those who catch the vision. God is at work.

Jim is the pastor of Charlesworth Independent Chapel – also known as Top Chapel – on a hillside on the edge of Glossop over looking Manchester. Prior to this I was pastor of a church plant a few miles away in Hattersley, a 1960s Manchester overspill council estate. I grew up as a child going to church but, finding it boring, stopped as soon as I was able. I still had some general faith as a teenager and during my time at university but I drifted far from the Lord. After finishing university I met someone with an open Bible on the street in Birmingham who stopped me and pressed home the need to get right with God. Shortly after I repented of me sin and have served the Lord ever since. I’m married to Gemma and we have 3 teenage children. In our early marriage, Gemma and I spent two years in Chad working on a water development project as part of the church’s outreach. Our love for Africa has never left us and so it is a great privilege for me to be a small part of what the Lord is doing through Tanzania (UK) Trust.

I’m Chris Neilson. I’ve worked in churches and supporting churches who seek to reach and support others in their community for over 20 years and now I’m a Vicar serving in Glossop, Derbyshire. I’m passionate that the church is best when I works outside it’s walls to bring joy and fullness of life to all.
I love watching football, and still harbour an ambition to play for my favourite team, despite my wife Laura reminding me that my 47 years and large waist my limit this dream. 😂
I’m privileged to be dad to three great son and a little cocker spaniel called Kenny Dogleash. (I’ll let you work out the football team)

I work as a Youth Worker and Bushcraft Instructor. I also teach survival skills to trainee Missionaries. I have 4 adult children and 2 grandchildren. We recently bought a farm with a vision of helping people with long term health conditions using bushcraft and horses. We also want to use the farm as a Christian day retreat venue.

I am passionate about my faith and enjoy the outdoors and lighting fires.

I have been with the Charity from the start and have visited Dodoma to see the charity work in action.

Annual Report

Come and volunteer with us in September 2024