Two grannies have died recently, which was very sad. Granny Doris was a much-loved sponsored granny, and her sponsors very kindly paid for her funeral costs. She was the granny whose sight was restored so miraculously because her sponsors had also funded her eye operations. Granny Salina, who has also died, was the granny who also went to have eye operations but the surgeon did not manage to restore her sight and she lived a difficult life, struggling to manage while still totally blind.

Once again I would like to thank you so much for everything you have done for Direct Link over the past year, including sending donations, sponsoring children, helping at events and fund raising.

This year has been both a good year and an unhappy one.

The very good news is that Allan, who is being sponsored by many donors to attend the University of Nairobi, is doing extremely well and achieved excellent results in his latest exams, attaining several As and many Bs and Cs. 
 

There has also been a lot of activity over the purchase and arrival of a donkey for Granny Maria, who makes pots from the soil in her shamba. Up until recently she had had no means of transporting these large pots to market, so was unable to be self-sufficient. Scottish school children so kindly donated the money to buy the donkey and other caring donors paid for its tack and vets' fees (should they be required). Having made a number of enquiries, I eventually contacted the KSPCA donkey vets, who visited Granny Maria and showed many members of the community how to treat the donkey, how to provide comfortable tack and how to feed it. This visit was a huge success.
  

The Primary School for the Deaf is progressing very well. As the sponsored children have risen through the school, a number of them have now moved on to a secondary school locally or have gone further afield to other schools.

Next clothing sent us another three boxes of new children's clothes, which have just arrived in Nairobi and the distribution has been a great success.
 

This year's Christmas fund-raising is being used solely for the provision of foodstuffs for the Kids' Kitchen. This is copied from the wonderful idea of Mary's Meals, where the primary school children receive a hot meal every lunchtime, cooked by the widows and grannies, using food donated by Direct Link. Unfortunately, during 2011, the Kids' Kitchen ran out of money and did not manage to provide meals all throughout the year.  This was just because there were so many calls for the use of our funds that there was not enough left to use for the Kids' Kitchen. This was not a good state of affairs because the children did not know whether or not they would be fed at lunchtime, so we wish to fund-raise enough money to ensure that every primary school child will receive a hot meal at lunchtime during 2012.