Help me make their lives so much better

IT WAS not for the faint-hearted but extraordinary and certainly to be repeated. I want to thank everyone who contributed to bring a smile to the orphan's faces.

I am not sure you can imagine the joy of the children to receive goodies for their school sessions and the gratitude from the adults that a person from the West and her community would bother to consider them and come so far to visit.

Local tradesmen had made benches and desks for the children from funds collected in the Rye area.

From the donations and my own contributions we also brought to Nairobi 30 blankets and T-shirts, food, juice and a manual sewing machine for the widows group who will use it to sew school uniforms and other items to sell in local markets.

My friends picked me up from a hotel and we crossed Nairobi by foot - a sprawling town that is overcrowded and run-down with visible neglect and dirty streets.

People sell bits on the road-side to make a few shillings, yet they were smartly dressed and many spoke English.

We found a Matutu - a 12-seater bus with hardly any suspension left, it's the general transport. Considering the areas we crossed I did not feel uncomfortable or threatened.

We drove for an hour on a dirt road to Thika, north-east of Nairobi. After a day of rest we started the journey into rural Kenya.

We travelled for 10 hours to Homabay, a town near the Ugandan border. The roads were dirt tracks and dangerous and had not been touched for years yet Kenyans put their lives on the line continuously because they have no other choices. In all my time there I did not meet any animosity only a welcome and curiosity as to why I had come.

We had another journey in which we became stuck in a mud hole, luckily several young men were hanging out with their bicycle taxi and helped get us out.

By sundown we reached the village. There were several compounds of huts, one with a sitting room and bedroom and the other for cooking.

The toilet was a few metres down the hill, which was a bit of a chore at night with only stars to show you the way.

Life is hard in these villages, no jobs or opportunity to earn money and no infrastructure. Everyone is reliant on each other and the few who work share what they earn with the rest of the community. Widows are most vulnerable as they are left with no resource to be independent.

Women walk six to seven miles to fetch water from Lake Victoria, several times a day. There is no healthcare, no medical centre or hospital nearby.

One morning six men rushed past carrying a bed. A woman had a miscarriage and they were running to the nearest dispensary two hours away. She had not returned in the evening so we did not know if she made it.

Some of the solutions are simple and don't cost a lot in our terms. The community ploughed some land with two oxen to plant vegetables but they still have to water it manually as they don't have a pump.

To create a well they need money to hire equipment to dig a hole deep enough to reach underground water.

People came from far and wide to greet me and most spoke good English, discussing the differences and policies of their leaders.

There are many hopes and aspirations for progress as well as much frustration at the limitations of Government policy.

However, all of them were behind the orphan school and believed education is vital for progress and alleviating poverty.

The children themselves were wonderful, never having seen a white person. The schoolhouse is dilapidated and needs repair.

Our dream is to find a donor to help build a new schoolhouse with a dormitory, including a workshop for the women to sew school uniforms and make garments to sell.

We want space for a vocational training centre for children who drop out of school at 13 and 14 because no-one can afford to pay secondary fees.

So if there is anyone out there wanting desperately to let their philanthropist side come to the fore please contact me, the building would cost around 10,000.

Remember your taxes and donations which are paying for aid being sent to African governments often does not reach many of the poor.

However, supporting a specific community who help themselves but are limited in their capacity to do so, you will know that your money is being targeted and not misused. I can vouch for that.

I look forward to hearing from anyone who is interested in the project, even without donations you may have ideas as to how to raise money or suggestions which may be helpful.

My immediate pet project is to raise 1,600 for a water pump for the children's food programme as the fear of drought and subsequent hunger is never far away.

Contact me on 01797 229103 or email [email protected]