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 I was lucky enough to have as part of my gap year an experience in Kenya with a charitable organisation called SCANN Kenya. Street Children Assistance Network of Nakuru has developed much since it first began in 1998 with its emphasis, but not exclusively, on providing a caring home for street children and orphans who have no other alternative or hope for the future, except to turn to crime. Today SCANN not only provides the children with a home and three meals a day, it looks after their education, and health, and also their religious development, as this is an important aspect of life in Kenya.
 The charity has set up a school and that is where I found myself working most of the time. My main tasks were to teach English and Maths, and trying my hand at acrobatics where I usually found myself flat on my face!
SCANN has become an effective force for the monitoring of cases both representing children, on the wrong side of the law and victims of crime.
It was eye-opening to visit the Police Station and Courts to see the appalling conditions for the many  men, women and children awaiting trial, on remand or on police bail, and if it wasn't for the financial and personal support of the Newcastle Law Society in Britain, many of the children would not get a fair trial and would languish in prison for ever!
I am immensely grateful to the RBS and to Mrs Wilson, Bill Wilson's widow for making the funds available to me to experience this. I certainly planning to return next summer to see my  friends out there - the Kenyans are great people!
Charles Day
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