Friday 25th November 7.30 p.m.

Ceilidh for Kibera 7.30 p.m. in Christ the King Church Hall, 220 Carmunnock Road, Glasgow, G44 5AP. Run by the young people going to Kibera in February 2012 in aid of the Community Health Workers of the Order of Malta and Laini Saba Primary School, Kibera. Tickets £10 each from Liam Devlin

Thursday 10th November 6.15: Order Requiem

The Annual Requiem Mass for the Delegation will be celebrated on Thursday 10th November, at 6.15 for 6.30 p.m. in St Mary's Metropolitan Cathedral, Edinburgh.

The Cathedral has excellent wheelchair access and there will be a reception afterwards in the Cathedral Hall.

Wednesday 9th November 6 p.m. Duns Castle

A lecture by Angus Hay on the History of the Knights of Malta, followed by supper in Duns Castle, Berwickshire, TD11 3NW by kind permission of Mr & Mrs Alexander Hay of Duns

Tickets £15 (contact Liam Devlin for tickets "petrasancta "at" gmail.com

African Fayre - Thursday 29th September 2011

There will be an AFRICAN FAYRE in St Aloysius' College, 45 Hill Street, Glasgow G3 6RJ on Thursday 29th September at 7 p.m. The Osiligi Maasai Warriors will entertain, with audience participation, the food will be an African buffet by Karibu, and there will be stalls selling African artefacts, as well as drum workshops and other activities.

The event is in aid of Malteser International famine relief for the Marsabit district of Northern Kenya. Tickets are £10 each from College reception, (0141 331 9222)

Walsingham Pilgrimage 16-18th September

There are still places available for helpers on the Walsingham Pilgrimage.

North-East Companions Event 14th September 2011

THE KNIGHTS OF JERUSALEM
A TALK BY ANGUS HAY

1715HRS WEDNESDAY 14TH SEPTEMBER 2011

THE PARISH CENTRE, ST.COLUMBA’S CHURCH, 5 HIGH STREET, BANCHORY

BY KIND PERMISSION OF CANON ANDREW MANN.

The story of the Knights of Malta

1715hrs Drinks/Tea/Coffee 1745hrs Talk starts 1900 talk ends

1930hrs Mass at St. Columba’s for those who wish to attend.


Cost: £5.00 per person. Payment at Entrance.

Presentations to the Foundation of Hope

The Foundation of Hope is a wonderful Kibera charity founded by one of our young grads, David Dinda. It promotes decency, tolerance and health awareness through sport and performing arts and operates from the upper classrooms in the former St Aloysius Gonzaga High School buildings near Roundabout 42. After they had performed for us, we gave them presents - a camcorder, presented by Lucia, and two sets of football strips, presented by Michael.

Lamu Laboratory

An essential part of any hospital, especially in Africa where TB, HIV and malaria are so prevalent, is the laboratory. Lamu has a highly-skilled lab staff but they have to improvise with very poor equipment.
Here is the staff:

Here are cultures being grown in a tattered old case with an ordinary striplight:

And here are slides with blood being tested for malaria being dried out using a rusty old fan:

Not strictly part of the lab, but here is the blood bank. All blood has to come through the testing centre at Mombasa and kept at a temperature of around 7 degrees. In Lamu it is stored in a domestic fridge and the door opened from time to time to stop the blood from getting too cold.

Babies

In case we forget the focus of this part of our activity - healthy mothers and healthy babies - here are two babies delivered by C section performed by Dr Nurein while we were there.

Lamu Operating Theatre

Although we have narrowed our involvement to the maternity pavillion, it is important to realise that despite Lamu's having no roads and very basic medical facilities, Dr Nurein has to carry out all the functions, medical and surgical, of a large hospital. Just to show that Africa has its fair share of sweaty nightcaps, here is one of Dr Nurein's operations which hit the headlines:

Lamu Hospital - gifts already given

Thanks to the organisational skills of Alice in Nairobi, the Companions and other friends have now given several items of important equipment to Dr Nurein and his team but there is a long way to go. All of the donated equipment is clearly marked as Order of Malta property.
The first picture shows the operating theatre with the old lights, which barely function. Alice has now ordered a new set of lights, whcih arrived while we were there, but which have still to be installed.

This is a good quality domestic fridge, but as well as keeping normal things chilled, it also has to double as the blood bank (see the next entry) which is not desirable as the door has to opened frequently to stop the blood from getting too cold - a rather Heath Robinson solution.

Here is the equipment steriliser:

and finally the two delivery beds in the maternity unit.

King Fahd Hospital Lamu

The King Fahd Hospital, Lamu, is one of the projects adopted by the Companions of the Order of Malta. One of our Companions, Suzanna, is a teacher at a prep school in Cambridge which she is hoping will join us in supporting Dr Mohidin Nurein, the superintendent of the hospital so we made this little film for him to speak to the children of the school directly.