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Anglian Home Improvements charity gift introduces double-glazing to Lesotho

Norwich company Anglian Home Improvements may be known the length and breadth of Britain for its double-glazed windows and doors - but now that fame has spread to Lesotho.

Annette Glenn (left) with Anglian Home Improvement's Luton field installation managers Dave King and Darren Wright and Living Lives representative Karen Porteous with the windows and door bound for Lesotho.

The small country, landlocked by South Africa, is about to receive probably the only double-glazed windows its population has ever seen.

Annette Glenn the founder of charity Linking Lives contacted Anglian to see if it had any discarded window parts that could be shipped to Lesotho to help construct a community office in the village of Ha Simone.

Anglian, the country's leading home improvements company, went one better by donating three windows and a door that had been used at this year's Ideal Home Exhibition in London. Annette believes that these will be the first double-glazed windows in the country.

Mrs Glenn, who lived in Lesotho 10 years ago when her husband was helping to construct a dam, started the charity to enable people in the village to have a better standard of life. They have helped, among other things, to dig a well, provide electricity and are sending children to school in an area which is extremely poor.

"We aim to create self-help projects not to hand out money," explained Annette of Bedfordshire. "The office will allow the 150 people in the community to come and gain advice or see what Linking Lives can offer them.

"In November Anglian's windows and door were sent in a container from Stevenage to Lesotho. The container also had 35 bicycles, 12 ancient but working sewing machines destined for a special project, clothing and the contents of a nursery school, which will equip a planned pre-school in Ha Simone.

"When the container arrives it will be our office for a while, then after the school is built we will construct a traditional stone-walled office with a grass roof and Anglian's windows and doors.

"In Lesotho the temperature can drop to -8^o but there are only single-glazed windows, sometimes with sandbags inserted to keep out the cold. Anglian's windows will attract people who will just come and stare at them because they have never seen anything like them before.

"We expected just a few window parts but instead got these beautiful windows and a door, I can't thank Anglian enough."

"It is really marvellous to think that Anglian's products are being put to such a good use," said communications director, Melanie Russell. "They attracted many admiring glances at the Ideal Home Exhibition it is nice to know they will attract more."

To discover what Linking Lives is achieving visit www.linkinglives.org.uk.

Annette has also written two books about her African/Lesotho adventures titled Innocent in Africa and Born Singing under the name Annette Willoughby. They can be ordered through book shops, borrowed from libraries, ordered on line from www.authorsonline.co.uk or from the author herself at Annette.glenn@hotmail.com, or call 01462 850112.