The Good Life Orphanage

Here we are back in a sunny/rainy Kenya, there has been no rain on the coast since late September so people are praying for the rains to come, every piece of available land is being dug over and prepared.
Life is progressing well at The Good Life Orphanage, our children are doing great and are so happy, it is amazing to see. We have a few new additions and one of the children, Helen, has been reunited with her mother who has been very ill but is fine now.

Elvis arrived from the police station in Mtwapa, he was found abandoned under a mango tree and is about two years old, he is a lovely happy little boy and could tell us his name so we now have an Elvis!!! Mary was picked up from the streets by a Good Samaritan and taken to the local police station, again a beautiful young girl about fourteen months old, she has just started to walk this week.

Juma and Zanibu are Rami’s older siblings, Kevin brought Rami back to visit his extended family and discovered his brother and sister living in another orphanage where they could not even give them one proper meal a day. After speaking to the District Children’s Officer it was agreed that they would be fed and looked after properly at The Good Life so they arrived last week.
And last but by no means least Abdulla, the eldest boy from the family in the village where their mother had passed away has been reunited with his three younger siblings. At eleven years old he is outside our criteria for admission but we felt the need to bring the family together was far more important so we bent the rules slightly.

Even though the majority of the children arrived very dishevelled and malnourished they adapt so easy and within a few days are running around playing with the other children. They are all taught to have good manners and be respectful by their House Mothers and Aunties, it is wonderful to witness the changes to their lives and we have everyone who supports us to thank for this transformation.

Just a quick email today to let you all know about the plans for this year and next at the orphange. If you download this file you can easily see where we are right now, and what is to come over the next 24 months with your help!

We are very busy planning the next fundraising event on Saturday 7th Febraury. Hope to see you all there.

2008 did not start out too good for us, with the post-election violence we could not travel and after a very successful 1st Annual Charity Ball we were itching to return to Mombasa. In February we ignored the Foreign Office warnings and headed back to Kenya, well Mombasa was as laid back as ever, only sporadic violence here and there, we were up & running again. The only downside was all the visitors who planned to come over to help us did not feel that it was safe enough and cancelled their plans.
Thankfully when we returned back to Mombasa in November our visitors started arriving, first Damian & Helen came for one week, they loved playing with the children and spent lots of their holiday at the orphanage. Damian showed them how to play football and we even let him pretend to the children that it was ok to support Bolton Wanderers!!!


Next was Pat, Marie & Anne from Dromore, Co.Tyrone. Pat came out and built the furnace and Marie was on-hand for the opening of Maguire House. Anne was very generous and bought us our first cow, Red Annie, who is having a calf in February and will produce 15/20 ltrs of milk each day then for the children. Marie and Anne accompanied me to pick up orphan children from the village and also a baby girl called Fionnhulagh from Coast General Hospital. They were moved to tears by what they saw and how the people cope. Marie and Pat are also sponsoring the education of a young girl Cynthia at Mikoroshoni Primary School.



Then John & Edna arrived on 8th December, again lots of time spent with the children in the orphanage and they fell in love with Kenya big time !!!We went to Coast General Hospital to pick up Patrick, a little baby boy about two months old, Edna was completely smitten with this lovely little boy. Oh we forgot to mention John caught a big fish !!!


All in all apart from the usual tummy upsets and the ever frequently calling Mombasa Express, we think our visitors really enjoyed their stay.
Our latest visitors have been some of the crew from the First Choice Hoildays flights, Phillippa Hindle who knows Suzy & Luis visited the orphanage along with Zoe and Lee, she were so impressed that she has set up a Face Book Site and we had another five visitors last week,Kandy, Elaine, Nicci, Vicky and Carl, as they saw our children love to have visitors as they sing and pose for photos at the drop of a hat.

Asanta Sana for all your visits and support in 2008, you will be made very welcome in 2009 as well xx

Life is not easy for the typical family in Kenya, as we have discovered. On the 14th December we realised that although little Brenda had been attending a nearby clinic for a chest complaint it was getting worst, she was struggling to breathe. Brenda’s mother had AIDS which affected her mind & as a result she beat Brenda as she ate soil when she was hungry, she is about 2.5 years old and her little face and body is covered in scars from the beatings she received. Unlike the UK there is no NHS here so it is matter of going to different hospitals trying to get the best treatment. As she was so poorly the only hospital that was willing to admit her was Nyali Paediatric Hospital and although we knew it was expensive it was her only chance for survival. She was diagnosed with acute pneumonia and as soon as the doctor saw her he voiced his concerns about her survival chances.
Early the next morning Salim who had arrived at the orphanage with his brother and sister on 4th December was admitted to the same hospital with heart failure. Salim was struggling to breath; his liver & kidneys were not working properly so his body was just suffocating with fluids. What was going wrong. the children were well fed and looked after but two children in the space of 24 hours going down with life threatening chest complaints was very unusual to us. After a long discussion with the resident pediatrician he explained that during this time of the year there are so many airborne bacteria that a high number of children die, we thought that this only happened in the rainy season.
After a few days the children were getting better and Salim was asking to get back out to the orphanage, then on Sunday they agreed to discharge the children, again a massive shock for us, nothing could have prepared us for the actual bill about £850 for the two children and they demanded payment before they would discharge the children. We had arranged a meeting with the main doctor there the previous Wednesday who had given us up to 50% of the normal rates but proper medicines are very expensive over here. So here we were with a medical bill that was the same amount as the monthly salaries for all our staff at The Good Life Orphanage but if the children would not have gone to this hospital they would have died, so we knew we had to get the best treatment for them.
Coming back to get the cheque book to write out a cheque for these cost and wondering just where we would get the money from when I opened an email from Dennis the Heat Teacher at our local Guardian Angels school saying they had raised money for the orphanage instead of doing the normal shoebox collection, this covered the bill with money left over, the Lord does work in very mysterious ways !!!!!!! Here are some photos of Brenda & Salim taken on Christmas Day, as you can see they are fighting fit again xx

Christmas Day 2008 was an alternative way to spend the day, instead of a Vigil Mass said by Father Paul at Guardian Angels Church in Bury, we went to the Cathedral in Mombasa centre, well the homily, which Father Paul is an expert on, was something about joiners and painters, we could not make any sense of, but This is Africa.Then onto the orphanage for our Christmas Dinner.

Well the children all had new clothes on, donated by our dear parishioners and people from Dromore, they looked so smart and Jackie & Miriam had cooked a wonderful Byrini, we had asked for no bones in our which is a sacrilege in Kenya. They used the bones to make a Pilau to accompany the Byrani. The children were so excited, they were sucking lollies which they dipped in the curry and insisted you taste it. What a difference sitting on a Swahili Mat eating Byrani for Christmas Dinner.


We put on the original DVDS we took from Day 1 at the orphanage and the children were amazed to see themselves on the big screen, Joshua did not speak or move for 15 minutes.

We had brought second hand toys donated by Guardian Angels Playgroup and they were wrapped in Christmas paper, each child a toy, Paul Wood from CAPS had given us toy mobile phones and Damian & Helen had bought footballs so you can imagine the happiness on each child’s face when they opened their presents,



We really missed our families but seeing the little faces opening the presents made us realise just what a difference the donations and hard work are actually making to these children.

In Mombasa for Christmas and the New Year sounded a great idea at the time but with Christmas Day fast approaching we were really missing our children and our new grandchild. It is completely different over here, yes the sun is shining and most local people go to the beach on Christmas Day but believe it or not we really missed our Manchester Christmas, not the running around the shops like a headless chicken but the time spent with friends and family, after eight weeks in this hot Kenyan sun you really do appreciate the wonderful lives we live back home.
On Christmas Eve we received a call that a brother and sister needed rescuing from another orphanage where abuse was rife, the authorities were trying to close it down as the person overseeing it was being arrested. We went to a terrible house in Bamburi where the Collins aged about 9 years old and his 5 year old sister Rachel were crying, they did not know what was happening. We picked them up, brought them to the local health centre for a check up and the routine malaria and AIDS test, both were negative, Thank God, and off we headed for the Good Life. Although Collins is a little older than our admission criteria of 0-5 years, we could not leave them in that terrible place. Miriam the House Mother for Maguire House was there to meet them, they were very quiet and their faces were blank.


Next morning Miriam showed Rachel her new outfit for Christmas Day, a beautiful red dress & bolero, her face broke into a smile and from that moment onward she has transformed into a happy little girl. Collins has spoken to Miriam at length about the abuse that happened at the other institution but as Miriam says with Gods guidance and the child counsellor’s one-to-one sessions he will overcome the terrible sights he has saw. Rachel will be starting our own little school on Monday 5th January and Collins has been admitted to a good local private school. So all is looking good for this brother and sister!!

A phone call on Monday 1st December could never have prepared us for the day ahead. The Department of Children in Kilifi has two orphaned children who needed rescuing immediately, off we set for the Vyambani Area which is about 30 miles from the orphanage in the interior. We met the village chief as he needs to give hs blessing to the children coming into our custody, first surprise not just two children but a family of six whose father had died four months previous and the mother had died in childbirth on 19th November, the new baby boy died three days later.


The village people were trying to look after them, we were taken into the jungle about 20 mins from the village to their house and at the side was the grave of the mother & the new born baby, three boys, 11, 4 & 3, and three girls 8. 6 & 2 years old. We were told by Department of Children that we could only take the youngest two, then we were told by the chief that we could take them all apart from the 8 & 6 year old girls as they were going to another orphanage, after animated discussions with the Department of Children, they agreed we could take the three youngest children, then the heartbreaking part we had to tell the oldest 11 year old boy that we could not take him as he was too old for our orphanage.

The chief asked us then to take he five children to the courts for committal orders & we had to leave the older boy behind in the village, a lot of tears from us but the children were just so excited to get into the minibus, they had never been in a car before & never saw a road, when we went over Kilifi Creek Bridge they were screaming with delight, we then had to take our three youngest & give the older girls to the woman from a girls orphanage. The three little children never cried just climbed into the back of the minibus and we continued our journey.

Onto Zion Clinic ,which is also run by a charitable organisation from Sweden, for the usual malaria & AIDS test & Thank God they were negative, so we now have another three children in Maguire House, they only speak their native tongue & when they saw the TV in the communal area last night they were asking what is this??

It broke our heart to split the family but as the village people said they will help look after the big boy & it is easier to feed one mouth compared to six. Things like this make us really appreciate what we have and also thankful that by the support we receive, we can help these poor children by giving them a chance when all else has failed.

Hello to everyone from a very hot & sultry Mombasa, Kevin arrived back on 23rd October and I followed on 13th November, just in time to be Best Man & Best Maid at our friends Nico and Christines Wedding on 15th November. It has been a very hectic time, we are amazed at the support we are receiving from everyone in UK, Ireland and Europe. The money raised makes it easy for us to do our job out here and make a safe secure home for the orphan children.

We opened Maguire House on Friday 28th November and thanks to a donation from Damian & Helen we had a party for everyone, the children had a wonderful time. Our visitors from Dromore, Co. Tyrone, Pat, Marie & Anne did the honours and cut the ribbon on Maguire House, named in memory of Kevins’ father Jack so it was also an emotional day for the family.

Luckily as a result of our donations we could afford a much needed minibus which was also handed over to the orphanage on Friday. The recreation area is now complete, it is dedicated to the late Ann Powell, a TV was delivered on Friday and the children spent the evening watching The Jungle Book, they were in awe as many had never seen a TV.

As we always say your donations are making a massive difference and over the next few weeks you will see just how important they are !!!

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.