On behalf of the children and the staff at Friends of Street Children, Kitwe, Zambia (FSC) we wish you a healthy, prosperous, and peaceful 2025.
The FSC shelter rescues vulnerable children who have no home.
If you have donated to Romilly your donation will have gone to pay the staff salaries at FSC (Friends of Street Children) and through them the care of homeless children. We cannot thank you enough.
At their last AGM, FSC replaced their board of trustees. We are delighted with this new infusion of energy. I am going out Kitwe, Zambia in February to see how they are getting on. I will return with photographs and video and will give a series of talks this spring explaining the work of FSC. If you would like to host my talk, with slides and video, please click here to send me an email. If you would like to make a donation, please click here https://checkout.justgiving.com/c/3333173.
We’ve said it before: the staff at FSC (Friends of Street Children in Kitwe) are tremendous. They clean cook, feed, teach and care for children who have no home. Their aim is to give these children a better life, bringing them back to whatever exists of their family, getting them back into school, getting them out of the filthy, dangerous, abusive life on the streets. Thanks to Romilly’s kind, generous donors her charity has been able to send funds to cover the salaries of these dedicated people. It is a double positive. People who give small monthly amounts are paying for the living of really heroic local people and through them caring for very vulnerable children. At the moment this costs about £1300 month, which exceeds Romilly’s charities monthly income, but just 130 people donating £10 a month would cover the cost of staff salaries as well as allow us to pay for essentials like mosquito nets and repair FSC’s buildings.
This is Mary Imri a member of staff at FSC (Friends of Street Children, Kitwe, Zambia), and to her left one of the ex-street children in her care. They have been harvesting vegetables from the garden of the Kibusha girls home run by FSC.
Than that…..
The photograph below shows a child sitting on a pavement in Kitwe. The bottle he holds contains glue which he sniffs. Sniffing glue dulls the mind, taking the edge off cold, hunger, pain and unhappiness. It can also damage the brain, hearing, heart, kidneys, liver and lungs. It can lead to coma, and sudden death.
Staff from FSC are a regular presence on the streets of Kitwe working to gain the trust of street children, to encourage them to return to whatever remains of their families, or to come to the FSC shelters. Street children are also brought to the FSC by the social services. FSC staff provide a lifeline for these very vulnerable children, who are prey to every kind of abuse. Thanks to the generosity of Romilly’s supporters her charity has been able to send £1100 to £1200 a month to cover the staff salaries at FSC.
The only salaries paid for by Romilly are those of the staff at FSC, without whom the lives of many children of Kitwe would be a lot poorer and a great deal more dangerous.
If you would like to receive information about Romilly’s charity, FSC and our fund raising activites to support the work they do please email Jame Forshall at jamesforshall@gmail.com
Thank you Mia de las Casa for organising the concert; to Johnny May and Fausto Cassar for playing and to Jimmy Moore and Stella Stewart for hosting it on their boat. Thank you all for all the work and energy you put into it, and thank youto all those who gave so generously. Altogether you raised £700. Romilly’s charity transfers £1100/month to pay the salaries of the dedicated, long suffering staff at FSC, a Zambian NGO, who do so much for the very vulnerable street children of Kitwe. FSC would not exist without the generosity of people like you. Thank you.
As you can see, Fausto does not just play at charity concerts, but also at all kinds of events, including weddings. He is classically trained and teaches classical guitar. Telephone 0770975193. Email gabriellecassar@gmail.com
Stay in touch: If you would like to receive the occasional news letter to let you know about the work being done by Romilly’s Charity and fund raising events, please fill in the contact form below
At Christmas Laura, who is twenty decided that she wanted to do something to commemorate the death of her cousin twenty years ago. She bought herself and her father, Sam, tickets to race in the Bristol 10K this Sunday 5th May. Her aim is to raise money for the care of street children, which Romilly’s charity supports. Sam says that it was quite hard to begin with, being dragged outside to train in the wet and cold, but that he is now in peak physical condition. They keen to go.
If you would like to hear how Laura and Sam get on in the Bristol 10k, and how Romilly is helping street children, by receiving our occasional newsletter, please fill in the form below.
At the very least Friends of Street Children (FSC) provide homeless, very vulnerable children with a respite from the abusive, filthy life of the street. Beyond this,
Meya Mbulo with boys in the classroom at Friends of Street Children shelter Kitwe
the aim is to reintegrate them with whatever remains of their families, and while these are being traced, get them back to school. School is one of the best ways to keep the children off the street, as well as equip them for life. Primary school fees are £33 and secondary school fees are £65 p.a per pupil at the time of writing. You can donate here.
In the picture above children pose in the classroom with teacher and administrator Meya Mbulo. Meya has dedicated her life to street children. No one who has seen her in action with the children on the streets of Kitwe can doubt her compassion, dedication and courage. Through thick and thin, and there have been some very thin times, she has soldiered on.
” I walk more than 6 kms to school and back. It is great excercise but sometimes I get too tired”, says Kunda Benson. When he was very young, five years old, both Kunda’s parents died and he ended up homeless, living on the streets from 1999 to 2002. He was taken into care by Friends of Street Children in Kitwe (FSC). Kunda had the imagination to see that it was worth going back to school, which, with FSC’s help, he did. He had the character and determination to pass his exams year after year, while also helping at the FSC shelter. He succeeded in passing the exams to take a place on a teacher training course. Now he will be taking his final exams in April, which will enable him to start his teaching practice. Kunda has always wanted to give something back and still helps at the FSC shelter.
Kunda in the lab.
Kunda’s choice may seem like the obvious one, but not to all street children. For many, the idea of submitting to the discipline of the classroom in order to achieve long term goals is too difficult. Kunda has shown real imagination, tremendous purpose and determination, but there are other street children like Kunda, who follow his example. Their school fees need to be paid. Currently these are about £88 p.a per child in secondary school, depending on the exchange rate. If you would like to donate to support street children returning to school, please go to https://www.givey.com/donations/new?charity_id=11250
Thanks to the donors and supporters of Romilly, the college fees of this exceptional young man have been paid for the last three years. Thank you all. Kunda writes, ‘I am so thankful for everything that you are doing for me and I am deeply humbled’.
Kunda Benson ex Street Child, and, thanks to Romilly’s generous supporters, Trainee Teacher.
After his teaching practice he will return to college for six more months. If you would like to contribute to his fees for this, please donate at
It was round about now, early evening as I write, twenty years ago that Romilly died. She was 14 years old. Romilly was very clever, as sharp as a tack, very funny but not remotely academic. She found school work dull. The bit she liked about school was being naughty with her friends. She was great fun, and had a wonderful sense of humour. She loved children though, and would have had a natural sympathy with the homeless children surviving in appalling conditions in Kitwe, Zambia.
The generosity of friends, family and strangers, touched by her death and the plight of these children, has achieved a great deal. Through the support that you have given to the Naivasha Children’s Shelter in Kenya, which you helped to create, and Friends of Street Children in Zambia, which owes its continued existence to you, lives have been transformed. Relations have been traced, children given a chance, school fees paid, salaries for teachers and carers paid, classrooms, shelters built, children rescued from the terrible life of the street. Lives have been saved. It really is something. If Romilly were alive to thank you she would, but since she is not I do.
‘Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart’.
Help Romilly help homeless, vulnerable children: please donate at
Benson’s parents died when he was five. His older sisters were left to care for him, but they didn’t….
They mistreated him, badly enough for him to take his chances on the street when he was seven years old. He was homeless in Mufulira for three months and then came to Kitwe, where he was also homeless. For a while he stayed with Friends of Street Children, leaving them for an orphanage run by the Catholic Church, from which he ran away. FSC street workers picked him up and lodged him at the FSC Kawama centre.
From the FSC Kawama centre he went daily to primary school, passed the national examinations with flying colours and was accepted by his secondary school, which he completed. This is a considerable achievement for someone who started life as a street child. Benson has always wanted to be a lawyer, so that he could defend street children, but until now he has not had the sponsorship to go to university. Since leaving school he has worked at the FSC Kawama centre, helping out with street children. He understands them and speaks their language. Throughout his life he has shown, resilience, intelligence, determination and courage. For his fellow street children he is a remarkable example.
Thanks to the generosity of Romilly’s supporters, her charity has been able to transfer £300 for Benson’s first term at teacher training college.
If you would like to donate in order to help fund the next term of Benson’s teacher training course you can do so here.
