The CharCharTrust's mission is to help Africans help themselves through improved education, and to this end, the Trust has distributed school textbooks, readers, exercise books, pencils and other educational materials to disadvantaged schools in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Uganda. The Trust has also built a total of eight classrooms in Malawi, and plans to extend both the educational supplies and building programmes to other African countries as funds permit.

The Trust operates at zero-cost to donors, meaning that £1 donated in the UK, buys £1's worth of educational materials in Africa. This is principally achieved by the Trust's operational model in Africa, where we look for local coordinators, often more privileged schools (eg. private international schools), social or religious organisations, to help us identify needy schools, compose appropriate wish-lists, and then help the Trust to distribute the materials we supply. The Trustees of the Trust and the estate of Veronica and Charlotte Parker cover any other operational expenses.

Beginning in 2011, the Trust will distribute its own collection of primary school reading books, educational posters, pencils, crayons and paint boxes. The stories contained in the books have been donated by authors from Europe, Australasia and Africa, as have the illustrations. The Trust's limited funds are further leveraged by at-cost printing by family friends in Hong Kong, with the net result that we are able to produce our own materials for less than one-tenth the price of equivalent commercial products. All stories are graded and approved by the relevant educational bodies in the countries in which they will be distributed.

We also plan to address the problem of storage in poorly constructed grass-classrooms, by supplying the materials in TheCharCharChest, a robust, water-proof box that can be anchored to floor, walls or even posts, and locked for security, thereby giving students a sense of ownership of materials that are currently stored at a distance, perhaps in the head teacher's home and, as a result, not easily or even frequently accessed.

The Trust has an on-going need for funds, fund raisers, authors and illustrators prepared to waive copyright for Southern Africa (where there is little commercial opportunity anyway) and to donate stories for primary or secondary school uses. Contact can be made with the Trust at mail@thecharchartrust.org.