WILLOW WHEELERS' TRIP TO KENYA
During the Mid-Term Mrs O Donoghue, Mrs O Sullivan, Ms MacGinty and Ms Regan travelled to Kenya with the Willow Wheelers on their annual mission trip. The purpose of the trip was to visit projects supported by the Willow Wheelers and to learn more about the struggles experienced by those living in third world conditions. To begin with, the group visited schools and orphanages in Nairobi’s shanty towns. Here we met extraordinary people who devote their lives to caring for the poorest of the poor. Betty, founder and principal of a shanty town school, works tirelessly to provide an education for children in the hope that they will have a better future.
Similarly, in another shanty town we met Anna Chebet who founded an orphanage for Nairobi’s abandoned children. Indeed, the day we visited we saw a four month old baby who had been abandoned a week earlier.
Both Betty and Anna receive no government funding and rely totally on donations from well-wishers. Therefore they were delighted to accept items gifted by the boys and parent of Willow Park. It was a joy to see small children playing with balloons and blowing bubbles on that afternoon.
In the past the Willow Park Charity Committee have supported feeding programmes in North East Kenya, whereby, a daily meal was provided for children living in drought ridden areas. On this trip, the group met children who survived the famine thanks to the support of the Willow Park community. Sadly, many of the children still live in extreme poverty. For example, one family we visited exist on a mugful of maize a day. On the morning we visited, the mother had left her six children alone to walk to the nearest health clinic, a three hour walk. Her one month old baby was sick and she had no choice but to leave her other children. There wasn’t a morsel of food or a drop of water available for the children left to fend for themselves. To alleviate the situation, donations given by parents of Willow Park were used to buy food and a goat to produce milk for the family.
In another rural school in Lormorton we walked around a bare classroom. The teacher Egla was delighted with all the school stationery items donated by the boys of Willow Park. Yet, even better was the excitement among the children when they were given handwritten cards from the boys of St. John’s First Form.
This is but a brief snapshot of all we saw in Kenya. There were happier moments too such as a visit to the Karen Blixen Museum and an Elephant Orphanage. The group also went on a one day Safari to experience the African wildlife. Perhaps one of the most memorable memories of the trip was looking up at the African sky at night.
Finally a big thank you to all who donated items for the Kenyan children. Every single item was much appreciated and has been put to good use. But more importantly, those who received the gifts were deeply touched that someone from a far off land had reached out and was thinking of them.
This video was recorded at Gatoto School in Nairobi, Kenya. The school can be found at the edge of the second biggest shanty town in Nairobi and the students all come from within the shanty town. The school is very overpopulated with up to 80 children in each class but the staff and students have still found time to form this choir. The choir has competed and won in national competitions for the past number of years and as a result of this, they were recently asked to perform at the St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Kenya. The choir had learnt Amhrán na bhFiann the week before we arrived and it is safe to say, we were blown away by how fantastic it sounded especially after such a short time. We were also treated to a rendition of Molly Malone and some African folk songs. It was a pleasure to hear the performances and we wish the choir the best of luck in the upcoming St Patrick’s Day festivities.