charity

This is Dominic Sahuku

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Dominic is 16 years old and studying Grade 11 at Mindolo Secondary School. Since his mother suffers from poor mental health and has been unable to take care of him Dominic has been moved from one relative to another. From the house of his last host, he was walking over five miles a day just get to and from school. He often returned late and tired, which led to arguments with his aunt. He was denied food for many days. His mother’s relatives treated him so badly that he ran away to take his chances on the street. At night he slept in a abandoned building until he was taken in by Friends of Street Children (FSC), who lodge him, feed him, and pay for his secondary school fees, books and uniform.

Dominic has always loved school and believes that education is the key to his future. His ambition is to become an accountant, but before he can, he must pass the exams and find the fees to enter university.

To come from such an unstable family background, to go from homeless to model pupil shows great character. We hope that his determination and hard work will be rewarded.

If you would like to help Dominic please donate through our Just Giving page here.

https://checkout.justgiving.com/c/3333173

The Power of Small

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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.

Please make a small monthly donation here: https://checkout.justgiving.com/c/3333173

Boys at FSC’s Kawama shelter, Kitwe, Zambia.

They say, ” Please make a small monthly donation here”

If you would like James Forshall to give a short talk with slides on FSC and Romilly’s charities please email him at jamesforshall@gmail.com

And better this II …

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Mrs Vimbi Chingaleeshi, the cook at the boys shelter Kawama, prepares the nshima with Jack. They are cooking on scavenged bits of wood because the supply of charcoal has run out.

Than this…

Street children in the gutter. They look dirty. Their clothes are filthy and they are infested with parasites. The boy to the left is holding a bottle containing glue which he sniffs. It helps to blot out pain, physical and mental, but damages the brain. These children are at risk of every kind of abuse and worse. Some will disappear. FSC, which Romilly’s generous donors have been supporting since 2005 provides a lifeline and a refuge for children like this. Thanks to the generosity of its supporters Romilly’s charity sends £1200 a month to pay for the salaries of the staff like Mrs Chingaleesi, who provide care for the children who choose to leave the life on the streets. Please help us to continue to do this by making a small monthly donation at https://checkout.justgiving.com/c/3333173

To all Romilly’s kind, generous supporters: Happy Christmas! Happy New Year!

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Meya Mbulo, second from left, and some of the girls at the Chibusa at the FSC shelter Kitwe, Zambia

Thank you. Your donations go to pay for salaries of the staff (not the trustees) at Friends of Street Children (FSC), Kitwe. They are heroic, soldiering on, often in very difficult circumstances. In the fifteen years that Romilly’s has been involved with FSC they have shown great dedication. Without them FSC would be no more than a collection of empty buildings. Through them your donations change the lives of very vulnerable homeless children. The alternative is terrible: on the Streets of Kitwe, homeless children are open to every kind of abuse.

Small regular donations make a huge difference. Just one hundred monthly standing orders of £20/month would cover the staff’s salaries and some of the other expenses. Please make a monthly donation here: https://checkout.justgiving.com/c/3333173

Spread a little warmth with your winter fuel payment. More street children than ever need our support

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Remember that dreadful moment when the teacher summoned you to the blackboard in front of the rest of the class?

The pandemic brought record numbers of street children to the safety of the two shelters in Kitwe. The pandemic has also brought rampant inflation and economic uncertainty and so we are appealing to anyone who receives a Winter Fuel Allowance but does not need some, or all of it, to make a donation so that we can continue to support Friends of Street Children and their mission to help these very vulnerable children.

How to support our Winter Appeal

You can donate some or all of your Winter Fuel Allowance using the donation links below. A donation can make a big difference to these children.

  • £365 will pay the salary of a staff member for three months.
  • £200 will pay for food for ten children for a month
  • £100 will pay to educate three children for a whole year at secondary school.

You can make a donation through Virgin Money Giving here:

https://www.givey.com/romillyforshallfoundation

A special anniversary.

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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.Rom smiles in pool

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

https://www.givey.com/donations/new?charity_id=11250

Meet Benson: Street Hero

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Benson’s parents died when he was five. His older sisters were left to care for him, but they didn’t….

Young African man from Zambia in blue against a green background

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.

https://www.givey.com/donations/new?charity_id=11250

My thanks to Christopher Mulenga for sending me the photograph of Benson.

Romilly’s One Island Walk: Tibby Shiels to Stobo

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View of Loch St Mary through leafless trees

I set off up the road from Tibby Shiels with Loch St Mary on my right. The sun bounced off the water. The cold, metallic light darkened the outline of the trees. There were no leaves to be seen. It could have been February rather than May.

After a mile or so I took the path which follows the Megget Water up to the dam. I was walking across moorland, at times the path was no more than a soggy, black carpet of peat. To my right were fields of grass enclosed in stone walls. A few sheep grazed. I heard the cry of curlews. Gradually the path neared the river and the road from the dam on the other side drew closer to the river too.

Rather than walk two sides of a triangle to cross at the dam I decided to cross just beyond a small island. It looked as if I might be able to step from stone to stone. I stepped out onto a stone and then, following the momentum already flowing, jumped to a large rock. I landed on its side, clung on, and with some difficulty scrambled up onto it. The stream was wider and the stones further apart than I had thought. I sat on top of the rock taking off boots and socks and rolling up my trousers.  The flow of water was vigorous. Its rush and noise hid the sounds of bird and sheep, enclosing me, drawing me down to the river’s world. It looked deeper and faster than I had thought. I stepped cautiously into the water. It was freezing. The stones were rounded and slippery. I hoped for my camera’s sake that I would not fall in, but gosh, it was cold. My feet and ankles felt as if they were being squeezed fiercely by something so cold that it burnt. I would have liked to have moved quicker but the the water was fast and dark and the stones uncertain. I clambered out and sat in the sun drying myself and enjoying the tingling sensation in my legs.

I walked up the road and joined my friends at the dam. We set off west and then took a path where there was a public footpath sign. The path was marked on the map but straight away forked in a way that was not. The map path ran up hill parallel to the stream in the valley below, but did not seem to be as consequent as the diverging path which seemed to beckon and corresponded better with the authority of the footpath sign. We stuck with the smaller path and headed up hill past a plantation, keeping the stream or burn below us on our left. We were on the western edge of the map and would soon move on the eastern edge of the next map and had to look from one to another.

It did not seem quite right and at times I was not sure which valley I was in. I took a bearing from where I hoped that we were to the head of the Manor Valley.  The path disappeared and we found ourselves walking uphill through rough tussocky heather. It was hard work.  The burn below swung off to the west. It should have been a sign. I checked my compass and we continued. We went north west down hill to a gate in a fence which we went through and then sensing the empty space behind the rise in front of us walked to its top and found ourselves on a cliff of moorland grass falling steeply to the valley floor with the valley laid out before us. Bingo! It is a happy moment when one’s faith in the wobbly needle of the compass is fulfilled: a kind of magic, a trick played on oneself.

Looking North down the Manor valley, smooth hills and valley sides with occasional plantations, rough moorland grass in the foreground
Looking north from the head of the Manor Valley

We walked down the hill, traversing and re traversing its steep sides and then headed north down the valley.  High up on the valley side where the sky met the hill we could see the silhouette of a man on a quad moving jerkily.

sheep skull with moss

The path became a track. At the edge of a wood we stood back to let a farmer, his boy and dogs herd ewes and lambs up the valley. One of the lambs was left behind by its mother, who was cut out and driven back by the dog while the farmer scooped up the lamb letting it hang by its front legs from his meaty hand.  We walked through the farm yard and down the track. A young woman was hanging out washing. There were few trees and little garden but daffodils had been planted by the track.

Twisted Beech tree

We walked past a low hill to our left. On the map it was labeled in gothic print, ‘MacBeth’s Castle’. Later I emailed a friend called MacBeth, who lives in Glasgow, who replied saying that there were a lot of ‘MacBeth’s Castles’ but sadly none of them belonged to her.

Gate at Dead Wife's Grave with view of hills beyond

Just after that we took a wide path between stone walls which passed between fields to the left and forestry to the right. At the top  we entered a wood and continuing up hill came to a gate at the edge of the wood with a view of the next valley. The place is called Dead Wife’s Grave, a name which belies the beauty of the place and the tenderness of this simple memorial to someone loved.

Soon we could see Stobo.  We walked down cheerfully. We heard a clattering, panting and turned to see a young man, his arms held out hopefully like featherless wings, run past in an ecstasy of kinetic energy.

Beech tree trunk behind stone wall or dyke covered in lichen, sheep and meadow in background

At Dawyck Mill we crossed over the River Tweed. It had been a good day.

I am walking a long way to raise money to help homeless children. If you have not already done so, please donate at

https://www.givey.com/donations/new?charity_id=11250

Aintree to Burscough Day 21 of Romilly’s One Island Walk for Street Children

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( I am walking to John O’Groats to raise money to help street children through Romilly’s charity. The story starts with the post on the right, ‘Where shall we park the car?’)

Squashed Foster beer cansFosters Cans 

While I had waited for nice Courtney at reception to book me into my room, a succession of middle aged men had come into the hotel asking for their keys.  One of them explained to Courtney that they were a party of golfers and that they were about to meet up for drink and then go out on the town. They had already had one session after their game. It was 9.45 pm. ‘Will you be having breakfast?’ Courtney asked. ‘Oh I shouldn’t think so. I don’t expect we’ll get back until around 6.00 a.m. We didn’t last night, least ways’.

As I came out of the shower I heard a loud bang and then a furious hooting. I looked out of the window one of the golfers had reversed his car into that of another.  Notice advertising free pudding

The next morning I picked up the abandoned railway track of the night before. Before long it opened into a patch of disused ground and then disappeared into a scrub of willows and brambles. It ran north along  the east side of the Aintree race track. There were places with sensational views of individual jumps just a few yards from the path.  I walked on through suburbs and then came to the canal.yellow flowers by canalLeeds Liverpool Canal  © James Forshall

A man was fishing. I asked him if he ate the fish. ‘No. It’s just for fun’. He jerked on his line. The rod bent. He pulled on it hard but the hook was stuck in weed.  A few hundred yards further on I came to the first cornfield.

View of cornfield through metal railings with convovula on leftView of the River Alt from the Leeds Liverpool Canal

I was making for the junction of the Leeds Liverpool Canal and the Lancaster Canal at Burscough. From there the Lancaster canal went due north more or less to Preston, but having crossed the Mersey on the ferry I was now too far west and had to work my way east.

I followed the canal north to the M57 where it went under the motorway. After that it headed west, so I left it and joined the road to …well on the map it didn’t seem to be going anywhere but up to the M58, a hundred yards in front of which it stopped, but it was heading north and from it I could take another road north east, shadowing the M58, which I would then cross and head north on the B5240 to Lathom.

The land was flat. To the south I could see squat tower blocks: Kirby?  St Helens?.  I walked past farms, and ditches full of rubbish.  rubbish in a ditch

From time to time I had to put on my waterproof coat, but most of the time it was dry and sunny. A powerful wind was blowing which bent the trees, pulling on the pale undersides of the leaves, buffeting my rucksack.   I crossed the motorway and at Stanley Gate and went into a pub, which was full of people eating. ‘It’s late for lunch.’  ‘Not on a Sunday it isn’t’, said the young Scots manager. I wondered which way his family would be voting on the 18th September.

Blue portable lavatory, toilet, w.c. on wheels on edge of road by fields, blue sky, puffy clouds

I walked on. There was probably less than five miles to go. The wind tore across my path.  It was early evening by the time I got to the Ring O’Bells. It’s beside the canal. Cyclists were leaving it to continue down the tow path and colourful barges were mored beside it.  I went inside ordered beer and crisps. On the table beside me a young man and a much older man were talking about raising money to fund the younger man’s motorbike racing career, and how to make money out of it. ‘See, most people like uz know this recuvery’s all piss ‘nd wind’, said the older man. The girl behind the bar gave me the name of a B and B. I rang. The woman sounded nice, pleased that I had called even though it was late. When I left the pub it was dark.  Weak BridgeBridge over the Lancaster Canal 

The woman showed me to a comfortable room. I showered. Washed my boxer shorts and socks, hung them out to dry in the shower room and fell asleep. It had been a long,  if uneventful day.

If you would like to help Romilly give street children a chance donate at

https://www.givey.com/donations/new?charity_id=11250

It’s not the leaving of Liverpool – Day 20 of Romilly’s One Island Walk for Street Children

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Dog with tinsel ears sitting on pavement© James Forshall

(If you are new to the blog. I’m walking to John O’Groats. A leg infection obliged me to stop until I recovered. The journey starts with the post on the right, ‘Where shall we park the car?)

It was the leaving of Liverpool and it wasn’t;  not if Aintree is part of Liverpool, which on the map it looks as if it is.

I landed mid morning at John Lennon Airport and took the bus into the centre of the city. It was a fine Saturday morning and humming.

I wanted to change my telephone.  I spent quite a long time with Roy in the Vodaphone shop. By the time I left it the crowds were even thicker and it was after midday.  I walked down to the docks where I had stopped walking weeks earlier. Then I turned left and walked North East along the river front, past flattened warehouse space, empty docks, converted warehouses.

derelict ticket office, Liverpool, docks, merseyLiverpool Docks

I walked past dock gates with names like Victoria and Trafalgar, opening onto an an expanse of leveled hardcore and cobbles, the teeth of a city ground to the bone, then the thin gleam of the river, Birkenhead, and a sky like a dirty aluminium pan. I didn’t have a street map and had not yet worked out how to use the navigation tools on my new telephone, so was navigating from my 1:50,000 OS map and compass.  There was no one about.  It was quieter than early Sunday morning, except that it was Saturday afternoon and I wondered what it would be like on a week day.

I walked past a boarding house. There was a girl leaning against a first floor window talking on a mobile telephone and moving in time to music. She had blond hair and wore hot pants. Hotpants! Outside a large bearded man stood on the pavement. He wasn’t waiting. He was just standing. Something about him made me think he might be the exception that proved the rule that Liverpudlians are friendly and sociable. I walked on, past a magnificent Tobacco Warehouse, awaiting conversion to flats or demolition, then over a metal swing bridge and on until I decided that it was time to turn East. I wanted to join the disused railway line which is a public foot path and which would link to the Leeds Liverpool Canal.

Tobacco Warehouse Liverpool DocksTobacco Warehouse

I was walking up hill away from the river.  I walked past an empty park. I badly wanted to pee and walked off my route to a garage, where I bought a sandwich. The man at the till told me that the w.c.s were for staff only. He told the same thing to the motorist behind me. ‘Blinking ‘eck. I’ve been peeing in here for the last thirty years and that’s the first time I’ve heard that’.

I walked up a street of terraced houses. A man came out of his front door wearing a grey track suit. He looked as if he had only just woken up. He lit a cigarette inhaled deeply arched his back, stretching his arms above him, exhaling smoke and revealing quite a lot of pale stomach skin.  I walked past a church yard, dark sooty grave stones, dark greens then to the dual carriageway intersection. I found a place to have a pee below an ornately carved 19th century coat of arms dedicated to the glory of the borough set into a concrete wall. I crossed under the intersection and continued east. Now I was walking down the street of salons: beauty, hair, tanning, pet grooming, nail painting, and pedicure interspersed with convenience booze stores and takeaways. Most of them were shut though some of the booze stores were open.

It was late afternoon, grey skies, empty streets, rollerblinded shops. I wondered where I would sleep.  I had an idea that I could find a place to pitch a tent on a piece of urban waste ground or on some of the green space on the edge of the city: urban camping. I kept on walking.  I knew I had to turn left or north somewhere here to meet the abandoned railway line.  I followed a street of terraced houses and to my amazement saw a blue cycle way sign. This must be the abandoned railway exactly where it should have been. I turned left or north onto it. I saw no one. It had taken me a long time to get this far and I was still a long way from the limits of the city.

The track followed a cutting whose steep banks were covered in willow and blackberries. I have never seen such big blackberries. It was as if they were cultivated. They tasted delicious, sweet and perfumed. I would have happily stayed to collect them in large quantities. As it was I would walk for a few minutes and then unable to resist,  stop, pick a hand full and cram them in my mouth.  I saw no one.  It must have been after 6.oo pm.  I came to a place where the track passed under a wide road. It was a bridge but felt more like a tunnel,  rectangular with an cinema screen of light at the end of the darkness.  I walked in.  There was little graffiti. I walked on. It became darker. I concentrated on the patch of light and wondered what I would do if the lumps dimly perceived  at the side of the tunnel rose up, men in rags and tried to attack me.  I couldn’t run.  But nothing happened except for the metalic rumble of traffic above.

I walked on and then in the distance heard a terrible cry, that of a soul in torment, rather than of physical pain, repeated again and again. I came to another tunnel though this one was shorter and then as I walked through it I heard the cry again louder. I wondered what awaited me.

The track swung out of the tunnel into a gentle curve to be crossed by another path. There was quite a lot of space, bracken brambles the kind of place I could conceal my small tent, I thought.  Then I heard the cry again, this time more like a cry of triumph and I saw a group of children running towards me on the upper path.

‘Welcome to Liverpool,’ One of them shouted.

‘Welcome to the shit hole’, shouted another ‘….Well not Aintree but here.’

‘Its a camper!’.

‘Let’s photograph the camper.’

‘We’re er yer from?   Do yer camp out every night? What’re yer doing it fer?’

I explained and handed them Romilly stickers. ‘I’ll sponsor you.’  ‘So will I.’  ‘Wher’ll you sleep tonight?’

‘I thought I might sleep out here on the railway track.’

‘Not ternight yer not’, said a diminutive boy.

‘Yu’ll be done over.’

‘Yu’ll be mugged.’  They looked at me worried.

‘You should go to the Premier Inn.’ Said the girl. ‘There’s one at Aintree. Here, let me see If I can find it for you.’  She consulted her mobile telephone and called. There were no rooms. The girl looked concerned. ‘I’ll see if I can find you somewhere else.’ The other children crowded round as she bent over her phone.

‘Ere, luke at the hair on ‘er’, one of them said. We all looked up. Three young people wearing a mix and match of army surplus, denim, and goth black were walking down the path: a different tribe. One of the girls had purple hair.

‘Hippies’, said one of the boys scornfully.

‘Ya, Puma warriors!’ jeered another.  The puma warriors kept on walking, wisely I thought.

The children called a couple of other hotels. None had rooms. They thought I’d find something in Aintree and gave me directions.

‘And if yer see a group ‘f lads and they asks you fer the time doan answer’

‘Say yer haven’t got a phone’

‘Say no thanks and keep walking…or they’ll do yer’.  I looked down at the pale half circle of their upturned faces. They were concerned.   I thanked them.

I found the Kentucky Fried Chicken and turned left down the high street.  I hadn’t gone more than a couple of hundred yards when I saw a railway bridge above it and a blue sign to the cycle path.  ‘What the heck’. I didn’t want to pay for a hotel. I walked back up some greasy stone steps to the path and turned east. But then there was sign which seemed to indicate that I was going in the wrong direction. Further down the path I could see the smudged outline of two people in the gloom. I got out my torch to look at my map.  That definitely seemed to indicate that the path went north east, but the sign seemed to be saying the opposite.

‘Alright?’ asked a friendly voice. The smudged silhouettes had turned into dog walkers. ‘Yes, thank you. Fine.’ I didn’t want to get into a long discussion. They moved on. I turned off my torch and the gloom closed around me, a pale path ahead through deep shadow.  I walked a few yards and came to a second sign. This too indicated that I was going in the wrong direction. I got out the map and my torch.

‘Lost?’ It was the dog walkers again. ‘No. Not lost but I’m not sure which direction to take. My map says I should carry on down the path. The sign says the opposite.’

‘You don’t want to stay on the path at this time of night…definitely not’, said the man. ‘There’s a premier Inn just down the road. Go there’ I explained about the rooms. ‘You can’t stay here. Y’ll be mugged. They’ll sort you out. Come with us we’ll show you the way.’  And so I did.

‘I wouldn’t come up here without my husband’, said the woman, ‘It’s the lads. Saturday night. You just don’t know. That’s why we came back. We couldn’t leave you up here on your own.’

And sure enough when I got to the Premier Inn the very nice girl at reception remembered that the there was a room without a television which they weren’t allowed to sell. A room without at telly: urban camping. Bliss.

If you would like to help Romilly help street children donate at https://www.givey.com/donations/new?charity_id=11250