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SARAH'S DRIVE TO BUY AFRICAN ORPHANAGE
A FUNDRAISER who wants to buy an orphanage building which is home to African AIDS orphans is calling on locals for help.
Sarah Johnson, 42, of Cornfield Terrace, made a trip to the By Grace Disabled Orphans' Centre in Nairobi last November.
Since then Sarah, who is a dance teacher, has joined the Build A Future Appeal and with founder Yvonne Salmi, who owns a nightclub in Seaford, is sending money each week to cover rent of the orphanage building which acts as a home and school to its 240 residents.
Sarah said, 'This does not leave them enough for food. I want to raise up to 20,000 but am initially aiming for 10,000 to buy the orphanage.
'I have 3,000 saved already. I now need local people to buy a fundraising calendar I am having made, which has the potential to earn 5,000.'
At home, in a lifestyle very far removed from the crime, infection, prostitution, illiteracy and violence of the Nairobi slums Sarah has seen, she has found many people willing to give their time for the project.
Twelve famous jive dance couples have offered to pose for photos for a calendar, with a professional fashion photographer offering his time for free. The graphic design is being given free and local people have already sponsored the page production.
The list of people wanting to help is growing daily as Sarah tells anecdotes of what she has seen at the orphanage, which brings her close to tears as she talks to the Gazette.
She met Yvonne and discovered the orphanage when she had signed up for a self-discovery course and needed a community project to dedicate herself to as part of her study.
She said, 'I packed a load of pencils in a suitcase and went over to see the children. The worst thing about it all, apart from them sleeping on floors in corridors and on the floors of the rooms where they eat and try to learn, was that they had no running water.
'The children had to take buckets to neighbours to get water for washing, cooking, everything. All 240 children were going to the toilet in a bucket.'
The age of residents ranges from six months to 18 years, with most of them between the ages of seven and 14.
Some are physically disabled and many are the orphans of parents who had contracted AIDS and later died.
Sarah said, 'This is down to the unfaithful lifestyle of the men in this culture. They bring AIDS back to the wife so the children are not thought to be infected.'
Sarah says she has been touched by the support of locals so far and hopes donations and purchases of the new calendar will take her closer to her target.
A sponsored head shave is planned at The Lamb in Old Town, with details to be announced, and another dance event is to be held before her next visit to the orphanage in November. For this trip she will be joined by local postman Steve Ray, 42, of Wilton Road, who is also fundraising for the orphanage.
More information, including contact details for buying a calendar, is available online at www.buildafuture.org and www.bygracecentre.org
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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