Welcome to The Clabile Trust

The Clabile Trust provides opportunities for children throughout Africa to build better futures for themselves. We’re working in partnership with local communities to send children to school, provide safe accommodation, set up after-school clubs and vocational skills courses, arrange activity weekends and supply equipment and clothes.

The Clabile Trust was conceived in 2002 when its founder, Sophie Grimaldi (nee Meeson), spent four months as a volunteer teacher at Refihlile Primary School in South Africa. Sophie realised that there are many ways in which she can help the children build better futures for themselves and began by raising the funds to send three of the children she had taught to a much better fee-paying boarding school. Their school reports and letters bore testimony to their hard work and happiness at their new school.

Since then, The Clabile Trust has gone from strength to strength, supporting not only more and more children from Refihlile Primary School but also children in Uganda, Namibia and Zimbabwe through a range of projects.  Since its conception, the charity has raised over £100,000. 

The Clabile Trust is a UK registered charity (No. 1110943) and is run exclusively by volunteers so every penny raised goes towards our work to build brighter futures for children. 

Our patron is the actress, Jodie Whittaker.  In 2017 the BBC announced that she would become the thirteenth, and first female, incarnation of The Doctor in the British TV series Doctor Who.

Thank you for visiting our website.

Search Our Site

Did you know?

'Clabile' is pronounced cla-bee-lay and means 'shining' in Northern Sotho.

There are 7 million children in South Africa but only 500,000 have access to early childhood education.

Make a Donation

Donations are always gratefully received to help us continue building brighter futures for children.

You can donate online by visiting our Just Giving site.