Youngsters offer help to less fortunate
TWO north Norfolk teenagers are rolling up their sleeves to give less fortunate people a helping hand.Sam Buczynskyj, 19, is just home from Tanzania where he's been working at an orphanage near Mount Kilimanjaro.
TWO north Norfolk teenagers are rolling up their sleeves to give less fortunate people a helping hand.
Sam Buczynskyj, 19, is just home from Tanzania where he's been working at an orphanage near Mount Kilimanjaro.
And Robbie Bennett, also 19, is off to Nepal this summer where his work will include helping impoverished villagers to repair walls and roofs, teaching basic hygiene to prevent common conditions such as diarrhoea, and digging pit latrines.
Robbie, whose parents Marilyn and Graham and siblings Lucy, Anna and Tom live in Honing, is appealing for sponsors to help him raise �650.
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He pledges that every penny will go towards building materials and educational resources for his trip to Ilam, a major tea-producing town in the east of Nepal.
He will be part of a team of students from Bristol University, where he is in his second year, studying physics with astrophysics.
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Robbie will live with a local family and is taking part in weekly training sessions with organising charity Bristol Volunteers for Development Abroad to prepare him for the seven-week project.
Nepal is one of the world's poorest countries with a gross domestic product per capita of just �190.
A former East Ruston and Stalham schoolboy, Robbie has already raised about �200 towards his target and will be unicycling the Bristol 10km race in May in return for sponsorship. Anyone who would like to support him can ring 0782 583 9563 or email: rb7423@brist.ac.uk
Sam, who lives on Norwich Road, North Walsham, with parents Bev and David and sister Hannah, spent a month at the Joy Foundation orphanage, which cares for about 120 children.
Although language was a barrier, Sam used play to communicate with the children, many of whom had been abandoned by parents unable to care for them. Others had been orphaned through diseases including HIV Aids and malaria.
He was shocked by the 'disgusting' conditions in a hospital where he helped take one child to be tested for malaria.
He also helped build bunks to accommodate new young arrivals, who slept four to a bed.
Mealtimes were unreliable and on two occasions Sam and another volunteer bought bags of rice to feed the children as they were not given a lunch. They also bought books, pens and pencils for four children who would not have been able to attend a government school without the equipment.
Sam, a former Millfield Primary and North Walsham High School, pupil, will be taking up a place at Nottingham Trent University in October, to read history.
