Help sent to Aids orphans

One project by the Quicken Trust was to install a village water pump

A couple are preparing to take an early Christmas to a group of children orphaned by Aids in Africa.

Geoff and Geraldine Booker, from Hailsham, East Sussex, formed the Quicken Trust to help the orphans after their daughter went to work in Uganda.

They began the project after seeing for themselves the poor housing and living conditions in the village of Kabbubu.

Mr and Mrs Booker are now to fly to Uganda with gifts sent by the children's sponsor families and a blanket for each child.

Money raised by the trust has already helped to build a children's shelter, as well as a school and a clinic.

250 children in Kabbubu now receive regular meals and an education

Mrs Booker said: "We were totally overwhelmed and shocked when we got to this village and found these children in rags and bare feet - 400 of them, all eagerly looking."

Mr Booker said: "In the last three years, we have built a school for 400 orphaned children and put in a medical clinic.

"We have 250 orphans sponsored at the school for two meals a day, for their education and uniforms and for their health care."

Statistics from the charity's website say that tens of thousands of people die each week from Aids in Uganda, which has a population of nearly 20.5m.

The charity says that there are more than 400 impoverished orphans in the Kabbubu Jungle alone - in a country which is now so poor it is recognised by the British government as meriting special financial help through the Millennium Gift Aid programme.