The Friends of Londiani Gathering will be a wonderful opportunity to meet friends and have a great time in the delightful surroundings of riverside Cork in the springtime. But we haven’t forgotten what its main aim is — and the good the money it raises will do. This story from Nyairobi village is just one example from many. Damaris Wanjiru and Everlyne Kwamboka were involved in the first Sustainable Tourism course in late 2011. It gave them practical skills that improved their lives at the time and their prospects for the future. Here they tell us how. “We used to walk far to buy vegetables and when we got back to Nyairobi village, nothing was as fresh as it could have been. We went to the Sustainable Tourism course run by FOL, and they helped us see that if worked together we could achieve more than if we worked on our own. Twenty of us decided to invest in buying some seeds, fertiliser and watering cans. We invested 50 shillings per person. We planted vegetables and started to sell them locally. When we had made some money we used it to buy a better watering system. Today there are 30 local investors in the project in Nyairobi village. FOL helped us gain knowledge and skills and then we got on with it ourselves. The families involved in the programme have more freedom to make choices about how they spend their money. We can pay for school fees, we can buy more and better food for our families, and we can buy things for our homes to keep it clean and we are proud.” That’s a great result of past fundraising efforts, a result Friends of Londiani will be aiming to repeat many more times with the funds raised on April the 20th at the FOL Gathering. Do join us. http://www.friendsoflondiani.com/getinvolved.php?id=295