Friends of Street Children

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

Laying the Foundations

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The foundations of the new sanitation block being laid at the Kawaza shelter for street children.

The new sanitation block is necessary because visitors to the site currently can only use the WC’s in the dormitories, also many of the street children visiting the shelter have never used a WC before. The building will cost £850, which was kindly donated through a 2 Wheel Appeal fund-raiser organised by Miki Jablowska. Miki has been a tremendous supporter of Romilly and Friends of Street Children, running two marathons for them.

The young man with the pink shirt tail in the top picture is Edwin Chungu. He is one of the gardeners at the shelter and when not gardening helps to look after the children.

The pink building in the background is one of the two boys’ dormitories paid for by Romilly’s generous supporters. Both dormitories are in urgent need of maintenance. Please donate at

Please make a donation at https://checkout.justgiving.com/c/3333173

If you have any questions or would like to join Romilly’s supporters please write to jamesforshall@gmail.com

Ex-street children on their way.

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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,

Boys, classroom, Kitwe, Zambia, Africa, education
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.

Help Meya help these children. Donate here:   https://www.givey.com/donations/new?charity_id=11250

If you would like news of Meya’s work and how the children she cares for are progressing please fill in the form below.

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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.

Saving a child, Easter Sunday, 2015

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In the warmth of the African night three outreach workers of Friends of Street Children (FSC) were walking through Kitwe market. During the day this is a colourful part of town. At night it is sinister. Here and there naked bulbs hanging from the stalls throw out dingy pools of yellow light. Shadowy figures can been seen sleeping on the market stalls and in the dark under the board walks homeless children sleep near open drains.  Drunken men lurch out of the shadows.  Here the three out reach workers found a 14 year old boy. He had been badly beaten and raped. He was in great pain and near to death. It was just after 10.00 p.m. on Easter SundayStreet child sitting on bed with rescuer

David with one of his rescuers, Meya from FoSC    Thanks to Barry Traynor the photograph

They took him to the Hill View Hospital, where FSC have an account, and where the chief clinician admires FSC’s work. David was treated there for four days. His life had been saved.

Good Work by FSC

Barry Traynor, a social worker from Northern Ireland, who has just returned from a visit to Kitwe and who over a number of years has spent a total of 3 years working with FSC praises their work, ‘Honestly, when I’m out there I am constantly amazed by the number of confident young people who say to me that their life was saved by FSC’.

Not all children are as lucky as David though. Christopher Mulenga of FSC says, ‘The life of a street child is brutal and short. Apart from the ones who we are able to reintegrate with whatever remains of the their families,  the ones who live longest are those who end up in prison,  and most of them do not come out of there alive’.

I am walking from Gretna Green to Inverness across some very rugged country to raise money to help Street Children. Please donate. https://www.givey.com/donations/new?charity_id=11250

Romilly helps street children to help themselves

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Following the success of the first fish pond at the Naivasha Children’s Shelter (see February 19th’s post) Romilly is sending 4625 euros  to pay for a second fish pond and two green houses.

The charity is also paying for the repair of the borehole and the replacement of the pump at the Kawama shelter in Kitwe. Once the borehole is working order, Romilly, will contribute £5000 to the £12000 cost of a consultancy study by the group ‘Teach a Man to Fish’.

The Kitwe project needs to be more sustainable in order to be able to continue its excellent work, that is to say that it needs to grow more food, provide more of it’s own income, and raise more money locally. The aim of the study by ‘Teach a Man to Fish’ is to identify ways of doing this and to help FSC of Kitwe write a business plan.  £12000 does not sound a great deal for this kind of a study, but ‘Teach a Man to Fish’ is a charitable group.

Street Child to Carpenter – One week to Fascinating Aida’s concert for homeless children

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Christopher Mulenga of Friends of the Street Children has sent me this photograph of Zacharia graduating.  Zacharia came to the street in 1999 when he was 9 years old. According to Christopher, his parents were drunks and did not care about him. He started attending the open air street corner classes provided by Friends of Street Children (FOSC), and then went into one of FOSC’s residential homes. After a few weeks he ran away. FOSC did not lose contact with Zacharia, and found him a place at a local school where he studied construction and carpentry. He graduated and was given a set of carpentry tools, which he sold a few days later in order to pay for food.Zac ended up on the streets again, but he kept in touch with FOSC. When he was 16  FOSC found him a place at another school. They paid for his accommodation and fees, and once he graduated helped him find work. He is now employed on a building site as a roofer.

Help fund FOSC and the excellent work they do by buying tickets to  FASCINATING AIDA’S  concert for street children. Only 6 days to go. Still a few tickets left.

FASCINATING AIDA

with Massive Violins

At the New 20th Century Theatre, 291 Westbourne Grove, London W11 2QA
7.30 p.m. 3rd December 2012
Tickets £40. Includes white wine and smoked salmon.

RESERVATIONS 0208 994 854

All proceeds to the care of homeless children in Africa. Romilly’s Foundation pays no European salaries