The Friends of Londiani have returned home from their volunteer project in Kenya with gifts from the local culture for the people of Ireland.

Following on from the summer’s successful community development projects, the volunteers are ready to share what they experienced with their own communities the width and breadth of the country.

The 69 volunteers who worked in Kenya for three and six weeks at a time, came from 15 different counties and worked together with the local communities around Londiani to help them to become the authors of their own development.

At times the living conditions were very basic for the volunteers, but the warmth and friendliness of the local people always outweighed any discomforts felt and the value of the work done was apparent in their words of appreciation and simple acts of kindness.

The volunteers will now be supporting the community groups in Ireland by selling handmade Masai keyrings as part of Friends of Londiani’s ‘Keyrings for Kenya’ campaign. The colourful handcrafts cost just €2 and are available by contacting any of the returned volunteers, the FOL office or online at our gifts page.

They will also be available in shops nationwide from this week. All proceeds from this campaign will go directly to the projects in Kenya.

FOL has also teamed up with the local church, St Kizito’s, in Londiani and the adult choir have produced a beautiful CD with recordings of the songs used during Mass each week in Londiani. The 13 track CD is available from FOL office or the website at a bargain price of €10. The proceeds of this CD will be given to the Parish in Londiani which is led by Corkman Fr. Martin Barry. Fr. Barry is originally from Glanmire and has worked tirelessly throughout Kenya for the last 40 years.