The Good Life Orphanage

Again Guardian Angels Parish has supported the Good Life Orphanage in different ways over the last two months.

A special end of term mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School celebrating 150 year anniversary of the apparition of Our Blessed Lady to Bernadette at Lourdes ended with the unveiling of two new statues, Donna singing Ave Maria and a presentation of a cheque of £225 to Mary Maguire for The Good Life Orphanage - Thank You

On the final day of term Debbie O’Boyle along with Year 5 pupils from Guardian Angels School presented Sharon with a cheque for £510 which they raised by doing all different things including selling balls for the orphanage- Many Thanks to You all.

John & Monica Cullen were given books by their son & daughter-in-law, Peter & Sue, they arranged a book sale in the Parish Centre & made £126, great work & thank you John & Monica for your continuing support.

Lucy O’Boyle ran The Great Manchester Run and raised £100 - Well Done Lucy

Also a special thanks to Andrew & Jill Smalley - we appreciate your help & support.

We are very lucky to have a wonderful Parish Priest, Father Paul Cannon & his very efficient secretary/organiser/jack of all trades, Sharon Beech. Along with other members of Guardian Angels parish they organised a wonderful evening on 27th June with Mr Jimmy Cricket.

Jimmy and his entourage, wife May, daughter Jamie, Peter and D.J. Jimmy Nicholas aka Elvis arrived a Guardian Angels and gave a wonderful performance, all free of charge.


The local ladies made tasty canapés and the bar staff made alcoholic & non-alcoholic cocktails. Everyone was made to feel very welcome and generously supported the raffle.

Again every penny raised is in the bank ready to go direct to Kenya and with support like this we know the orphanage will be a great success.

Since the beginning of our project The Northern Ireland Contingent have gave us unwavering support. Just recently Vincent managed to get another unbelievable donation from DAFA, which will be wisely spent developing our building project.
Roisin and Fionnulagh O’Neill were busy fun raising again and donated some of their Birthday and Holy Communion money to the orphanage. They also organised a Holy Communion Disco which raised £80. Thanks again girls. Their mummy Donna and Granny Marie rallied all their friend & family and on the 12th July packed bags at the local ASDA in Omagh raising funds for the orphanage.



As we have stated many times, every penny goes direct to Africa, nothing is deducted along the way for airfares or administration, so every penny raised in Tyrone will be spent on the project !!

Whilst Kevin was in Kenya, I attended The Pride of Eireann Awards at the Palace Hotel in Manchester on 13th June 2008. It was a brilliant night and I was absolutely amazed to receive an award for our charity work at The Good Life Orphanage.
We are so lucky to have a wonderful committee here in Manchester who supports us, Anne-Marie O’Malley, Catherine O’Gara, Karen Kilroe & Mike Flynn are our backbone and without their help we could not succeed in making our dream reality by building The Good Life Orphanage.
A special word of thanks goes to our dear friend Joe Casserley from The Full irish Radio Show who nominated us for the award. See you in Kikambala soon Joe.
Also to Eamon, Colin, Tim & last but by no means least Kay Flynn for listening to us chatter on about how to raise the profile of The Good Life Orphanage. Thanks for your input as well as the scones & jam from Anne-Marie & Catherine’s mum- makes the meetings run soo smoothly!
Please go to www.bernieobrien.com to view photos from the night

A last minute change to the design plans of the community centre meant Kevin paid a surprise visit to the orphanage in late June. He was amazed at the progress of the children, the vegetables, the chicken and the new buildings.


Jackie, the orphanage manager, had everything running like a dream. House-mothers Grace and Jane with the help of our lovely house auntie Purity had the houses spick and span. The biggest transformation was the children, Moses, Caleb and Joshua are healthy, happy young boys. Jane, Gracie and Naomi are demanding little divas and babies Michael, Paul, Roisin and Kay are coming on a treat. A lady from the local village Jocelyn is also employed to help the house mothers and she is doing really well.



The one-acre plot is now producing vegetables and fruit for the houses and whilst Kevin was there the local women came in and killed some chickens, their payment was the head and feet of each chicken they killed!! David and Onesmus are doing a great job.
To see such positive changes makes everything worthwhile and every person who has supported us so far can see just what a difference their donations are making.

Asanta Sana from everyone at The Good Life Orphanage