Baker's tubs help poverty-stricken children in Tanzania (From York Press)

Baker's tubs help poverty-stricken children in Tanzania

5:07pm Thursday 18th October 2012 in News By Julie Hayes, Business editor

EMPTY tubs and containers from Thomas the Baker’s are travelling half way across the globe to be reused in a Tanzanian centre for poverty-stricken children.

The family-run bakery, based in Helmsley, has teamed up with charity Rotary International to donate the plastic tubs and lids, normally used for storing jam and butter, to the Lake Victoria Children’s Centre, on the island of Ukerewe in Tanzania.

The centre supports vulnerable children, many of which have been left without parents due to ill health and other tragedies.

Stephen Pratt, a local Rotarian who is involved with the Ukerewe project has shipped more than 60 Thomas tubs 4,495 miles to vulnerable families on the island, along with bedding, clothes, shoes, building materials, school books and even sanitation equipment.

He said: “People can use them for storing food without dirt and insects getting in.”

They are also filled with rubbish such as maize and rice husk, paper, sawdust, banana skins and other vegetable waste which is mashed up and compressed to form briquettes, which can be burned in place of wood or charcoal.