The Clitheroe Thursday, November 13th, 2008 Mo. 6,380 nows and ulows from the Centre of the Kingdom imes www.clitheroeadvertiser rice 70p are just a way of life ^ ^ ^ L U S IV E ^ V i v i e n M ^


TWP Ribble Valley mothere took a request to “step out of their comfort zone” to heart - and flew


- to the other side of the world. ir In a life-changing experience Ros^ mary Lancaster and Linda Richard-


. son, pictured right, spent aweek ■ investigating the plight of poverty- stricken street children living on a - rubbish dump in Kenya. ■ ;


; :The two women are already known to many in the Valley. What they


; found in Eldoret has already touched the lives of scores of local families,


-i following heart-rending slide presen- ■ tations.


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. Rosemary and Linda are involved •with Open Arms In te rn a t io n a l


‘ (OAI), a Christian charity organisa­ tion established in 2003. • With a base a t Text House in '


aClitheroe, OAI is currently building - a medical centre and orphanage in -the village of Eldoret. Al


women had been to the area before,


- but,nothing could have prepared , Sthem for the sights, sounds, smells i^and squalor they were to see just 12k :down the.rbad from the 53-acre pro- . posed village site.


S such, the, - Eldoret was the scene of some ofi


the most vicious fighting in the post­ election violence which rocked Kenya


: in January. At its height, 3,000 chil­ dren fled on to the streets. One thou­ sand are still there, scratching a liv­ ing on a rubbish dump -100 of them, girls. Fear and abuse are a way of life. Gang rapes are common and young ^ I s are giving birth on the dump. Glue sniffing and alcohol abuse is prevalent. Five days before the two mothers


made the nine-hour-plus journey to Eldoret, they had watched Ross Kemp on Sky TV, highlighting the glue community. Working with Save the Children’s rapid response team and X-Street - three former street children now working under the char­ i ty ’s umbrella - the documentary


• showed Kenya’s often forgotten side. I t was not the picture painted by the tourism industry of natural beauty and safaris, but the reality of the two - million plus orphans, half of them as ; a resvilt of HI V/Aids, a dally round of - danger and hunger dulled by solvent abuse. The stark images left their • mark and when St James’ Church pastor the Rev. Mark-Pickett chal­ lenged his congregation to “step out j of th e ir comfort zone” - the p a i r : .


instantly knew what they had to do. “I watched the Ross Kemp film


with our son,” said Linda. “I wa’tched in disbelief. The more I watched, the more tears flowed, sad, vague, helpless, lost faces. There was I in our comfortable home with my. son whom I love to bits and I looked a t these children, nowhere to go, and no one to love them and take care of them. And this, happening in Eldoret where only 18 months before I had been with the Open Arms team.” . , The pair rang Save the Children


and niet up with the team in Kenya. They met the X Street trio, Joshua, Juma and Jenga, who work in the mornings mending and selling shoes to pay their way for their families. Their afternoons arid evenings are spent with and helping the street children. They agreed to take the women to the dump, nicknamed “the barracks”. ■ “As we approached the dump, boys


surrounded'our vehicle”, said Rose-' mary. “We felt threatened. I t was black arid dirty and we were faced with .these boys with hoods and glue bottles hanging from their inouths.


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