A team of 13 employees from Capital International are in to Tanzania this week for the third year of a life-changing initiative supporting the Huruma Orphanage near Arusha.

The orphanage is home to 35 children aged between four and 17, many of whom have lost one or both parents. Founded in 2012, it provides a safe and nurturing environment, access to education, vocational training, and support in helping children reintegrate into society and build independent futures.

With the lease on the orphanage’s land set to expire, the children once faced the devastating risk of homelessness.

However, the Douglas asset management firm has stepped in and, together with support from the Woodford Catholic Parish in London, purchased a piece of land adjacent to the orphanage.

A plan was then put in place which to help them become self sufficient through purchasing adjacent land, which has enabled the orphanage to grow their own crops.

The firm’s chief executive officer Anthony Long first visited the orphanage in 2022. He said: ‘Visiting Huruma was a humbling experience. Seeing the joy and resilience of the children despite their circumstances was incredibly moving.’

Thirteen employees from Capital International across its South African and Isle of Man teams will be in Arusha this week.

Over the last three years the business has significantly improved the facilities by funding extensive construction and renovation work.

Some of these highlights included securing safe housing for 32 children in 2023 with the installation of two 4,000 litre water tanks.

The following year the building was efficiently insulated and the dormitories re-decorated.

Anthony said: ‘This will be our third trip and there are 12 of us going. We're staying at the orphanage for a week, and we are doing some building work there and spending some time with the kids.

‘It's been a massive project for us as a business, and it's the third anniversary of our trip back out there which is fantastic.

‘It began because I was lucky enough to go and climb Mount Kilimanjaro, which is just in Arusha.

‘At the end of my trip, I was with some friends and we went to see an orphanage. We'd raised a little bit of money to donate to the orphanage, and I came away thinking that we need to do more than the little bit that we had done.

‘It's a big part of our conscious capital agenda here at Capital International, and we do a huge amount of work in the community, and this was just a very natural extension of that.’

Capital International is dedicated to supporting this cause and other initiatives and has committed more than £100,000 for 2025 to its various conscious capital projects and partners. This has included, but is not limited to, the Isle of Man Woodland Trust, Isle of Man Badminton, the Manx Wildlife Trust as well as the Huruma Orphanage, Souper Troopers and Resthaven in Africa.