January 2019

The death of Dr de Sweemer last month posed big challenges to Butoke. However Dr Jean Lumbala, its other director,  had been handpicked by Dr de Sweemer as her successor and had run Butoke with her for several years. He was in reality running things as the sole director in 2018 as Cecile’s health deteriorated. In January 2019 he formally took charge.

Butoke is supported by the Friends of Butoke Charity in the UK, a similar charity in the US and also by a network of donors in Canada. In early 2019 we all worked with Dr Jean to help him focus on future plans and to budget for the future. Quite apart from anyting else, Dr de Sweemer’s death represented a significant financial blow to Butoke because she contributed all of her sizeable pensions towards its running costs.