Abbas Rest Orphans

Raimo  from Finland runs the Finnish side of ARO, he looks after the Finnish sponsors and takes care of all donations from Finnish supporters. Raimo is enthusiastic where the orphans are concerned and he is an important link to our Finnish sponsors and those that donate to ARO in Finland.  He works in conjunction with our Scottish office and does the translation of our newsletters into  Finnish.

Jim Walsham saw the need of the orphans and helped initially in fund raising for ARO. Now he is our PO Box  man who deals with all the donations and replies to letters from sponsors and others. He is the first port of call for letters to ARO and he loves getting  letters from sponsors. He has built up a great friendship with sponsors and supporters.

Richard & Eleanor were involved with orphans in Tanzania before joining ARO. They had some knowledge of the plight of orphans in Africa. They were invited by Peter & Kirsi to visit ARO centres. Peter showed them the operation and they were very impressed with the structure of ARO and also the care of the orphans. They already knew Charlie from earlier days, but at that time did not realise the amount of commitment Charlie was putting into ARO. Richards idea was to train up the children into different skills so that they could earn a living on their own. Richard had a good knowledge of different skills which could be utilised for the orphans. Eleanor had a background in nursing. midwifery and other skills which could be used to help  the orphans and poor in Africa. Peter asked them to join the team of ARO and they readily agreed and as they would still have a foothold in Tanzania, it was a mutual benefit to both.

Since 2006 there has been increasing support for the orphans of South Malawi by ARO. There have been changes to some of the ARO work to make our operation more effective for the children and their guardians.

The Marion Smith House on the outskirts of Chiringa has which was  named as a result of a donation by...............and that is why it was called her name. It has been a great asset for ARO. it is where the sick children were housed and looked after by local women who worked for ARO

We have some orphan girls who are in boarding school to give them a chance of education, otherwise they would not have any options as they are girls. We feel it is our goal to have as many girls with a good education behind them which will create more opportunities for their future.

There are also training opportunities for older children, sewing, tailoring, carpentry,knitting and making pots and pans.we have experienced people training the children in the different skills.

Volunteers to Malawi are proving a great asset to ARO. They come from all walks of life some have skills, and some do not, the main thing is they all come to help the orphans. They all go away with  a different viewpoint than they arrived with, and are enthusiastic in doing more for the children and spreading the news of the plight of the orphans of Malawi.

2007 seen more improvements to the centres and the lives of the children, 59 more children were added to the programme of ARO.  2007 also seen a volunteer nurse and midwife from Scotland who proved her weight in gold for  the children and their mothers on the baby milk programme. She gave all the babies a health check and proceeded to teach the mothers the right kind of food for the growing child. In her spare time there she took all the children with HIV out for a picnic and half the kids in the neighbourhood joined them and climbed to river pools up a mountain. All had a great time. it was a special day for the children and the other kids who tagged along.