Love Africa Ball for Tanzania

By 5pm Sunday she was on a plane to Tanzania. 

The foundation is sponsoring water and sanitation programs in the African nation, as well as a women’s empowerment program funded by the South Launceston Rotary Club.

Mrs Butler said lives for women in Tanzania currently offered few options besides motherhood, and that the Care for Africa program will use literacy, sewing businesses, agriculture businesses, and female hygiene products to give them the means to turn their lives around. 

“Women will start having children at the age of 12 or 13, and they will continue until they are unable to have children,” Mrs Butler said. “The women don’t want this. They do not want to have 10 or 20 children. So it’s about actually empowering women so that they can create a future, and so that they can have choices.”

When she arrives in Tanzania Mrs Butler will accept the Uhuru Torch from the government of Tanzania, with the Australian government represented by the Australian High Commissioner.

She said of all the accolades she has received for her charity work, this is the one that means the most. 

“Then I meet with the UN, and then I fly straight to where our work is,” she said. “I’ll be there for eight weeks, and I have a medical team that will be coming in in two weeks time.”

The Care for Africa foundation has raised more than $4 million for Tanzanian villages since 2006. 

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