A former pupil at Walford Primary School and Monmouth School for Girls, has put in place an on-going means of support for orphaned children in Nairobi after a life-changing experience in Kenya.

Tilly Lawson, who is 19-years-old from St Owen’s Cross near Ross-on-Wye, launched a scheme to build a chicken coop in Nairobi with money she raised during a Christmas appeal last year. The coop now houses more than 250 chickens, allowing the orphanage to collect the eggs which are then being sold in the street.

“I wanted to start a sustainable project that would be able to provide constant support to the orphans over a long period of time,” explained Tilly, who is due to start reading business and economics at the University of Exeter next week.

And the teenager, who left school last summer, also bought mattresses and blankets for another orphanage in Nairobi.

Tilly booked her trip to the East African country after receiving support from the Haberdashers’ Charity organisation.

Tilly volunteered with a charitable organisation, Marafiki Community International, and she said that the first few weeks at the orphanage in Nairobi were the hardest of her life.

Her placement started at Dada Education Centre, where 200 children attended school and 50 of them were orphans.

The teenager taught Science, Mathematics, English and PE to children aged from nine to 16 for several months.

“The state of the classrooms and the school system was appalling, and physical abuse as a punishment was completely normal,” she said.

See the full story in this week’s edition of the Ross Gazette, or subscribe to our online edition here