The Good Life Orphanage

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

On Monday 19th May, our local parish Guardian Angels had arranged for a viewing of the new 27 minute DVD we had taken whilst in Kenya. We were very pleased to see everyone and very surprised by the special presentation they had arranged for Kevin & myself. The Williams’ Boys, Leon, Ben and Jack had completed the 1km Run the previous weekend and gave us a cheque for £200, it was a wonderful achievement for the boys who came along with Mum, Dad, Grandma, Grandad and Uncle Chris to present the cheque. The boys worked very hard telling each and every person they met about The Good Life Orphanage.

A special Thank You to Mum Terese who thought she would be walking around the 1km with Leon but ended up running it as well. Also congratulations to Dad, Tom , and Uncle Chris who completed the 26km run for Cafod.

Asanta Sana to you all !!!

We have had to relinquish our crowns as “Queens of the Car Boot”; the Co. Tyrone contingent has taken over. Marie, Donna, Rosemary, Emma, Roisin, Fionnaulagh & Sinead are the new queens. They have surpassed our feeble attempts and are now very experienced & successful Car Boot Queens!!!



A special thanks goes to Pat Watters whose new garage is now Marie’s stock room for the car boots. There are clothes, children’s toys, prams, shoes and lots of bric a brac everywhere. Also Anton who arrange the display for the jewellery, which attracted lots of customers.
Well Done to you all xx

Because of the post election violence tourists have stopped visiting Kenya, there is a very serious knock on effect as many charitable projects have very little financial support, an email from Jackie told us different!! Our Ist Official Visitors were two very important & lovely people.


We are very lucky to have met some very good friends via Trip Advisor website, Edna & Brian Elliott hail from Plymouth. The support a local orphanage near ours The Lioness Cubs but still found time to visit our orphanage with food and gifts for the children and staff.


People like Edna and Brian are hard to find and we count ourselves very lucky to have their friendship.


We were amazed to receive these photos, it shows the progress of the children and our farm project.


Asanta Sana to Edna & Brian

Whilst we have been busy in Africa, our very strong support network has been raising money for the project through many different & diverse ways!!
Firstly Eamon & Audrey Maguire used their own interest in traditional Irish Music and dancing to organise a very successful night at St Patricks Hall, Dromore, Co. Tyrone. Never mind the endless rain & hail they sold all the tickets and showed the short DVD of the orphanage so far to get even more money.
Marie Watters & daughter Donna O’Neill tramped the streets of Tyrone selling tickets for a beautiful painting of an Easter Lily to raise funds again. The draw was made on with local councillor Anne Quinn.
Last but by no means least Vincent Maguire who organised a Gala Night in The Mellon Country Hotel outside Omagh. The MC was Gary O’Brien from TV Chanel ‘At the Races’
The forum consisted of Ferdy Murphy, trainer…Timmy Murphy, jockey. John Carr, Champion Hurdle winning trainer and Ireland’s top amateur Jason McKeown
Also present were legendary gambler Barney Curley, Mr Barney Eastwood; world boxing champion Dave Boy McCullagh, Tryone manager Mickey Harte, Tyrone footballing legend Frank Mc Guigan and a host of local personalities.
The night was a great success with a phenomenal amount of money raised.
It is the hard work of these people that ensure the development of the project and without them raising the funds we could only carry out limited work in Kenya.

Friday 2nd May 2008, 9.15am local time, getting the plane at 7.30pm from Mombasa to Nairobi connecting to Amsterdam and onto Manchester, please come to Coast General Hospital where four babies are ready to be discharged into your custody at the orphanage. Nico, one of our Kenyan trustees had spent the previous three days working with the local children’s department making sure everything was in place for the release of the babies. There was just four more signatures to get from hospital personnel but unfortunately the lady who signs the release forms first & sets off a chain of signatures was in a meeting, Caroline the young social worker went from office to office getting everything in place and at 3.15pm we were allowed into the nursery to pick up the babies.

Little Kay is only 1.7kg, a premature baby who was abandoned in the hospital when the mother realised the baby was in poor health but a proper little girl she has battled and now is gaining weight.
Roisin a 17 day old little girl who was abandoned shortly after birth but due to the timescale between the birth and when she was found by a good Samaritan, she has been traumatised but thank God she is doing well.

Baby Paul, aptly named after one of the best footballers in the world, Paul Scholes, a lovely little boy abandoned shortly after birth and about two weeks old. We have very high hopes for this young boy, a professional footballer maybe.

And finally Komoto, a beautiful young girl who celebrated her 1st Birthday on 3rd May at the orphanage. Komoto was born with a large growth on her skull, her mother left her shortly after birth and she has been in Coast General Hospital since, no other home would take her due to the birth defect. She cannot sit up but her new housemother Jane is spending time exercising her lower back and legs. Over the next six months we will have a neurologist examine Komoto and hopefully there maybe some surgical procedure to remove part of the growth. Either way she will spend a very happy, peaceful life in the orphanage being well looked after and receiving love & affection from her new family in Flynn House.

With only one hour to go Kevin managed to edit the DVD and catch the flight, pressure and stress but all worthwhile. We have returned now to Manchester & feel relieved that there are now ten children in the orphanage enjoying a new life. This has only been made possible with the generous donations and unbelievable support we have received from each & every one of you. ASANTE SANA

A Typical Monday in Mombasa

What started as a shopping trip for office stationary in Mombasa ended with another three boys in our orphanage. A phone call from the Department of Children to come immediately to their offices where three young boys, Moses 5 years old, Caleb 3 years old and little Joshua 2 years old, had been removed from another orphanage where they had been very badly treated. The boys were in a terrible state, malnourished with malaria. The authorities had closed the other orphanage and the boys had not received a meal for the past 48 hours.

Jackie, our manager, cooked the boys a lovely meal of beef stew and ugali which they woofed down. They were very scared and disoriented but had a little play on the swings and slides. We brought them to the local doctor the following morning who took blood tests which showed chest infections, malnutrition and malaria. After a struggle the boys received injections and medication to cure their conditions.

Their little bodies were marked and when Jackie enquired, Moses told her how they were beaten and burnt by the people who ran the other orphanage. Unfortunately some establishments use the children as a means to get money from tourists, the dirtier & thinner the child, the more money they get. People do not realise they are being conned and often make substantial donations which are just spent foolishly, never on the children or the orphanages.

After five days the boys are more settled but still very wary of men. Moses has started the local school and by all accounts is a very bright intelligent boy. It will just take time and hard work to gain the boy’s trust but our team are very committed and with the help of a child counselor we will ensure they receive whatever help they need.