Rotary Club of South Ribble, Lancashire

Rotary Club of South Ribble, Lancashire, England, UK
Rotary worldwide has 1.2million members and is present in over 200 countries. Most towns and cities throughout the world will have at least one Rotary club and often more than one. In the Preston area for example, where
we are, we have seven clubs. Malindi has a Rotary club as does Watamu. Rotary members are volunteers who share a passion for supporting their local communities as well as throughout their country and throughout the world.
"Peace the world over" is one of our aims. In Rotary we prefer to support charities with minimal overheads where all, or
nearly all, the money goes towards the provision of services. Happy House is very much one of those.
Our Rotary Club of South Ribble first became aware of a local Blackpool lady setting up a Kenya orphanage in 2012 when Sue came to speak to our Conference. It was a coincidence, as my wife and I had visited Watamu in 2004
and was supporting a young man – Salim – with his boarding school education in 2012. He is now a doctor – a Clinical Officer - working in a remote clinic in Kenya. Since that time, we have been very friendly with Salim's uncle, Sulubu,
who we met in 2004 and became friendly with and he and we have done various projects in the Malindi area together since.
In 2018 I stayed with Sulubu in Watamu and visited Happy House orphanage and the school on two occasions and was most impressed with what I saw, and so was Sulubu. 
Sulubu tells me that most orphanages in Kenya are money making ventures. They send their children to the local town to beg each day and look after them but provide little or no education. Just exploitation. It's very different at Happy House where the children living in the orphanage are loved and educated and cared for very well. Like a big family but without
the rows! Between the school and the orphanage each child is nurtured to be a whole person with a range of essential personal qualities and skills such as growing vegetables and fruit. And the school is amongst the best in Kenya.
Sue and husband Dave set the highest standards in all they do and make every shilling work hard. Sue is an extremely loving person but she will not stand for any nonsense especially someone trying to get one over on her. So, we know
that all donations we make will make a huge difference since, in most cases, money goes a lot further in Watamu than here in England. 
From 2012 to 2018 we sponsored two children – Baraka and Victoria - and now sponsor one child – Esther – who is aged 8, was a foundling and is delightful. We also help with Sue's projects from time to time. Just recently we have paid
for 3 Smart TVs for the school for example. Happy House is a high priority for our club members.