Focus on fundraising

PASTOR Joffrey ends each sentence with a huge smile and deep laugh.

Along with the joyful disposition of his school's children — wearing what he calls a "broken uniform" of grey and white shirts, jumpers and skirts, plus the occasional hidden Manchester United shirt — it is at odds with conditions surrounding the Hadassah project.

This is a school built next to the Ronda slum, with an estimated population of one million.

The current rented site will remain until November only, after which the landowner will take over the popular onsite church. So the race is on to raise 1m Kenyan shillings - around £8,000 - to purchase an adjacent plot.

We were taken to it, watching as we did even goats possessing the sense to leap over rather than through the worst parts of what doubles up as a thoroughfare and an open sewer.

On the current site, conditions are basic. The eight classrooms are built from corrugated iron sheets, mud and (some) concrete.

The eight-strong group representing Oldham Athletic Community Trust got to work assisting the teaching of English in the classrooms, all containing impoverished children aged from three upwards, plus painting the exterior of two buildings a natty cream-and-grey combination.

The real joy for everyone was playtime, signified by an old fashioned ringing of a bell.

Children, so obedient in class, have freedom to roam the enclosed grounds and they soon got to work teaching the Msungu (white person) their version of skipping, clapping, singing and running games.

There was an awful lot of "aranning" as the local accent pronounces it, severely tiring out the Oldham contingent under the winter sun.

My big pals were young women known by the names Agnes and Pauline, two decorated Kenyan middle-distance runners of the future.

More on that pair later.




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