Tools with a Mission

TOOLS

OF THE TRADE

Recycle Week, an annual campaign that aims to galvanise the public into recycling more things, more often, begins on Monday (19 September). To mark the week, MIKE GRIFFIN, CEO of Tools with a Mission, talks about how refurbishing tools and shipping them to Africa is giving recipients dignity, an income and a new start in life

Interview by Emily Bright

IT all began with incubators. In 1978

the Baptist Men’s Movement (BMM) asked Jack Norwood, a deacon at a Southend church, to head up a project to make them. In 1981, he travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for a year to develop solar-powered incubators to hatch chickens.

Schoolteacher John Bennett heard about Jack’s work and, realising the demand for tools in Africa, he encouraged his pupils to collect, clean and renovate tools to send out to the DRC. In 1984, with the support of the BMM, Tools with a Mission was founded.

The organisation sends out toolkits for sectors such as agriculture, building and utility trades, tailoring and mechanics. It ships an average of 16,000 tools a year to the DRC, Zambia, Uganda and Zimbabwe, and has plans to expand into Tanzania and Malawi.

CEO Mike Griffin says that the tools come from various sources.

‘Often, it starts with a phone call from a

widow in tears, saying: “My husband has just died. He has a shed full of tools. Will you please take them and use them?” When we collect the tools, we minister to the bereaved. ‘Or a company may change its brand image and send its old tools to us. We also receive individual donations. After the first lockdown, we were overwhelmed with tools after people sorted out their garages or sheds.’ Communities The collected tools are transported from local groups just want help and independent workshops to Tools with a Mission’s to become refurbishment centres in Ipswich and Rugby. There, independent volunteers sort them into specific trade categories and refurbish them. The tools are then shipped out to African countries and sent to distribution centres where recipients can pick up their toolkits. As Mike explains, Tools with a Mission works with smaller community-led projects that are run through self-help co-operatives or churches. ‘We have an application form where

Mike Griffin

Hansuma using his carpentry kit to make furniture for Rize

people tell us about their community, the challenges they face and how we may be able to assist them. Communities just want help to become independent. Our work is about giving them ownership and dignity. They are the ones that are changing their lives.’

Mike illustrates the ripple effect that the tools have within a community by citing a project in an area of Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, that has a 70 per cent unemployment rate, partly as a result of widespread illiteracy.

‘We went to Rize, a school that was set up by a church to reduce illiteracy through e-learning,’ he says. ‘There were 500 children who wanted to come to the school, but the school had no money.

‘A member of the church applied for a carpentry workshop kit and two sewing machines. Hansuma used his weeks off work to make furniture, first to equip the school and then to sell.

‘Then a lady, Annin, used one of the sewing machines to make school uniforms, because the kids couldn’t afford them. After school the teachers used the machines to make clothes to sell and raise income for themselves. ‘Next the parents of the children came to the school and said: “What about us? Can’t you teach us tailoring?” So the same lady is now teaching tailoring to the parents of the children in the evenings. Now the parents are earning money and can afford to pay the school fees.’ Tools with a Mission isn’t just having a social impact. It’s having an environmental impact too. Reusing and recycling 405 tonnes of tools a year and diverting them from landfill has saved an estimated 1,134 tonnes in CO2 emissions every year. In his work at Tools with a Mission, Mike is inspired by his Christian faith. Ahead of Recycle Week, which starts on Monday (19 September), he outlines how his beliefs influence the faith-based organisation’s attitude towards sustainability and reusing resources.

‘It’s about being good stewards of what God has given to us,’ he says. ‘When I see the works of God’s hands, the stars in the sky, what conclusion can I reach but that he is wonderful. The world is a gift of love from God, and we should treat it that way.’ In these uncertain times, Now parents Mike’s faith is a rock as he shapes the expansion plans can afford the of Tools with a Mission. He says he takes inspiration school fees from a line in the Bible’s Book of Nehemiah, which tells how the enemies of God’s people threatened to destroy them. Mike explains: ‘The people say, “We prayed to the Lord and posted our guard.” At Tools for a Mission, we “post our guard” by doing all the planning, events and advertising. But the rest is in God’s hands, and we’re praying for him to give us success and provide us with the resources we need.’