A Bag of Rice Gift (Digital download)

How your gift has helped Laughter Africa children in the past:

One bag of rice will feed the children at mobile for one whole week. Thats about 500 plates of rice!

We originally opened our mobile project in 2017. So far we have had mobile projects in Susan's Town, Regent Road, Portee, Waterloo, Grafton and Funkia.

Our new mobile opened on the 9th October 2023 at Funkia - a small, local fishing community. We have been welcomed into the community by everyone from the local gangsters to the headsman. This project is ably looked after by Rebecca, Biba, Bakarr, and Kadie, so I headed out there for the first time one week after the opening. Its a densely populated area, not quite as poor as Susan’s Bay where we had a previous mobile, but very poor just the same. I had no directions and had left my phone at the ICC as I wasn’t sure how safe the area would be.

I wandered through the market, the noises from the sellers, the smells, the sights, it would be quite overwhelming if I’d not been here for nine years. I asked several of the sellers if they had heard of the hall we were going, but no-one could help me. After hours I found the location of the hall. It was a wonderful moment and as I opened the door I saw over 75 street kids were in the room.

Since we opened we have welcomed over 252 kids into the mobile project but not all of them come every day. The children all sang a welcome song and afterwards we went outside to play a game of football on the beach. The beach was quite a walk and to get there we had to go through the shacks and homes of the local people. We then waded through a river, stepping through the fish heads and filth on the dump that covered the coast down to the sea. We had a great game of football and I even headed the ball!

On my way back I met a young lad picking through the rubbish dump with the pigs to find old aluminum cans to sell. He’s probably around 10 or 11 years old. I could tell from the state of his clothes that he was on the streets and invited him back to meet the others in the hall and share our food. He sat down and could barely keep his eyes open, almost falling off the bench twice before the food arrived. I’ve never seen anyone so completely exhausted. He had almost certainly taken some drugs- probably Kush.

Rebecca gave medicines to everyone who needed them, and as I was almost leaving to go home, one of the girls pointed out to me that one of the boys, Sallu, was bleeding from his groin. It was the kind of wound that you don’t want to even look twice. Really turned my stomach. I found out that he had been caught stealing and had been beaten by the community. In his attempt to get away he’d impaled himself on a spiky metal pipe and cut himself very severely; without treatment he would probably die. He wasn’t even asking for help, just bravely sitting quietly and bleeding profusely. One of my team took him to every pharmacy and hospital in the area but nowhere would accept him as he was too smelly. It makes me so angry. He was getting weaker, so we carried him back to the ICC where he was able to shower, put on fresh clothes and we eventually got him to a hospital that would treat him properly.

I wish I could say that this was an unusual day, but this is a pretty standard day at mobile.

A few weeks later, by the middle of November, Sallu was dead. He was caught stealing again so he was beaten to death. The children told me in such a a nonchalant way. Sallu was treated like dirt when he was alive, and he is still treated like dirt in death. Even in death, he is just treated like a joke. No one is crying for him. No one is mourning him. One thing that I am immensely proud of is the fact that at least before he died- Sallu knew that he was cared for. While everyone else mocked and jeered him, Laughter showed him kindness. When he had his injury, he could hardly walk so myself and the staff had to carry him to the ICC. We were there for him when no one else was. I love this photo of Sallu. He had just won his first game of Bingo. And this is how I choose to remember him. Not in the way he died but in the way that he lived. Again there is no consequence for the people who killed him- they just carry on with their lives as if nothing ever happened. I am not justifying stealing. But how can it be ok to beat someone until they are dead just for stealing?

To see mobile in action, please watch a documentary all about the work of Laughter Africa here.