African Aids Orphanage 
Throughout 2007, KING & COMPANY staff began contributing towards an African AIDS Orphanage in KwaZulu Natal outside Durban, South Africa. The Orphanage usually has around 22 children, aged between 4 and 16, who are orphaned due to AIDS. Many are infected with the HIV virus themselves. In September/October 2007, KING & COMPANY Partner Robert Livingstone-Ward and his son, James, accompanied a group of school children from Redcliffe High School to Durban to deliver food, clothing, toys and medicine to the children at the Orphanage. Robert and his youngest son Sean visited South Africa in June/July 2008 and they again visited the Gozololo AIDS Orphanage .They had with them approximately \$1,120.00 half of which was raised by King & Company staff and the other half raised by the students of Redcliffe High School. This converted to about R8,000 which money was applied as follows:- R6,000 was contributed to the construction of the new toilet block - the toilet block was completed in September 2008 (with additional funds raised and provided by Redcliffe High School (a delegation of their students visited and handed over their additional contribution in September 2008). R500 was paid to one of the local villagers, Nick, who helps out at the orphanage (and who is HIV positive himself), to oversee the construction of the toilet block. Another R500 was paid direct to Mama Doris who runs the orphanage. The final R1,000 was spent by Robert, Sean, Nick (from above), Tim (the tour guide who is our conduit to the orphanage) at the local grocery store. They filled up the boot of Tim's car with groceries (bags of fruit and vegetables, bags of maize meal, powdered milk, sugar, toilet rolls, toothbrushes and toothpaste, etc).
Robert and Sean also took with them a lot of clothing and toys (donated, in the main, by King & Company employee, Kym Bayliss), some simple medications, soap, shampoo, talcum powder, etc. Bags of tennis balls were a big hit, too. Robert and Sean returned to the orphanage in September 2009. As before, a huge amount of clothing and toys were taken to the Orphanage, and money raised by King & Company was spent at the local Spar grocery store buying food and other supplies (around \$500 Australian). There was some sadness - some of the children are no longer with the Orphanage, and Mama Dorris was ill, but also some delight as familiar faces were recognised from the last 3 years. Much myrth was created by circulating photographs of the children from last year. Ipods and Iphones were met with amazement (the orphanage has one VHS video cassette player). The children sang, and the visitors from Australia struggled through a verse or two of Waltzing Matilda.
Together, Sean and Robert also took the opportunity to sponsor 'Lynxi', a caracal (or lynx) at the Emdoneni Animal Care and Rehabilitation Centre at Hluhluwe in South Africa, for 12 months (www.emdonenilodge.com/rehabilitation-centre.htm).
The World Cup soccer in South Africa precluded economical arrangements for airfares and accommodation, and so the orphanage has not been visited in 2010.
Instead, Robert and both of his sons (James and Sean) turned their attention to Kenya and Tanzania. They climbed Mt Meru and Mt Kilimanjaro before going on safari on the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater. During that time, they visited a Maasai village which was extremely poor. Robert had taken a few toys, clothes, pens and notebooks (though not as much as in previous years, for this part of the trip was after mountain-climbing, and weight was obviously and issue), and passed those out along with small amounts of food. The village school was conducted in the outdoors, in a dusty cattle pen. It was equipped with a small blackboard...and nothing else (see the photograph below). The children sat on the ground or on bits of wood. Along with the small quantity of goods taken with them, money raised by King & Company staff was given to the village, and particularly the school.
Robert, Sean & James also stayed at the Giraffe Manor outside of Nairobi (a refuge for giraffes) for a few days (www.giraffemanor.com), and each sponsored a baby elephant at the David Scheldrick Wildlife Trust, also outside Nairobi (www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org).
Robert intends to continue his fundraising efforts with the staff of King & Company in 2010, with a view to returning to Africa (potentially Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa) in early 2011.
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