East Africa Women's League (United Kingdom)

We will be holding an online AGM via Zoom on Tuesday 27th April at 11 am. Please use the contact form on this website to register and receive the paperwork and the link to connect before the date.

Having missed our spring and summer meetings and lunches, we have now reluctantly decided that the three Autumn lunches, Norfolk, Hampshire and Northern should not take place either.  The guidelines prohibit large group meetings, and as we are mostly of a certain age, we concluded that we could not safely get together, even in small numbers.  Many of us will have been shielding and will not want to venture far afield anyway. 

So sadly 2020 will pass without a single opportunity to catch up with our EAWL friends.  We will be publishing Jambo in October as usual and hope to include as much news as we can to compensate. 

Sadly, following Government advice, we have cancelled all lunches and events until the end of August. This includes the Summer Lunch at Guildford and all Group Lunches. The well-being of our members and their friends remains paramount and we hope that you will all remain well during this worrying time. No doubt we will all be feeling a bit isolated, so if you need support, or just a chat, please do ring any Trustee or Group Leader and we will do what we can to help. Our phone numbers are in Spring Jambo which was posted out at the end of March.

Following government advice, we have postponed our Spring Lunch and AGM on 24th March until further notice. Although our Constitution requires us to hold our AGM before the end of April we have confirmed with the Charity Commission that these are unique circumstances and with the agreement of all the trustees we can postpone beyond this date. Jambo will be coming out within the next few weeks, and we will do our best to keep you informed about future events.

Women in Kenya is produced by the EAWL in Kenya, and Linda Richman looks after the distribution in the UK. Subscriptions are £8 and cheques should be made payable to Linda Richman and sent to 68 Kenley Lane, Kenley, Surrey, CR8 5DD.

Don’t forget our Spring Lunch and AGM is coming up on Tuesday 24th March 2020. Our speaker this year is Dr Chris Spring, for 20 years a curator of African Collections at the British Museum, and author of African Textiles Today. His subject is Kanga, Capulana and Shweshwe – Textiles of Eastern and Southern Africa. The day is very much a lunch, with just a little bit of AGM in the middle, so do please come and join us to catch up with old friends and make some new ones. Click HERE to download the invitation.

A database which holds information on people of European origin who lived and worked in East Africa from about 1880 to 1939 has been launched online.

It concentrates mainly on Kenya, but there are a some entries for Uganda and Tanzania .

It was compiled by Peter Ayre, who worked on it from 1993 until his death in 2018.  Christine Nicholls, an EAWL member, then took over work on the database, editing it and adding new information.

The database can be found at the following webpage: http://www.europeansineastafrica.co.uk

The Northern Branch held its lunch on Sunday 6th October at the Tempest Arms, Elslack, Nr Skipton, organised by Jenni Mayer. Of the 15 attendees 6 were at Jenni’s inaugural lunch 25 years ago.

An excellent curry and lots of reminiscing of life in East Africa was enjoyed by all.

The Hampshire lunch was held on the 5^th October in our usual venue, the Village Hall at Burley in the New Forest.  Over forty people attended, from far and wide, and enjoyed a curry lunch, cheesecake desert and tea\coffee and biscuits to finish.  We had three hours to chat to friends rarely met with these days, going back to our school years.  The weather was kind, and the volume of chat was high.  In addition to the meal there was a small donation bar, a bring-and-buy table, a raffle, and a book table.  Grateful thanks to the many volunteers for their hard work and all who made it possible.

Our Summer Lunch was held at the Refectory, Guildford Cathedral, on 28th July. Forty-nine members and guests attended from far and wide, and enjoyed a delicious buffet curry lunch with all the trimmings. It was a most convivial event, relaxed and friendly. Books, Africana and a wonderful selection of African made bags and baskets were available to buy and there were lots of raffle prizes.