This article has been written by Sharon for our latest newsletter so I’s thought I’d share it with a wider audience....

Llanfair Café has recently had its annual inspection from Environmental Health and we’re pleased to be able to say that we passed with ‘flying colours’ and we’ve been given a Silver Standards Welsh Food Hygiene Award. In addition, Trading Standards has given us a Bronze Healthy Options Award for our efforts to encourage healthy eating. We really appreciate our wonderful volunteers (local and overseas) who work so hard to make our café such a success. Well done all of you and keep up the good work!!
(We had a lively Community Open Day in March with lots of activities organised at Llanfair and Penrhys Partnership. One highlight was the launch of ‘On Top of the World’, a people’s history of the Penrhys estate, with a foreword by Revd. John Morgans. This special book is full of memories and photographs of past and present residents and events during the last 40 years. There is also a bilingual workbook on the history of Penrhys, full of interesting ideas and stories.)


PENRHYS AND MADAGASCAR

There has been a close relationship between Penrhys and Madagascar for many years. We have been welcoming young people from Madagascar as volunteers in our community since 1995.
These young people have contributed so much in the life of Llanfair and Penrhys, making friends with people of all ages and we’ve learnt so much from them. Many of them still keep in touch long after they’ve gone home - by letter, Christmas card or E-mail.
It was a privilege therefore on Wednesday, April 27th, to be invited to Ty John Penry (the headquarters of the Union of Welsh Independents in Swansea) to name one of their meeting rooms the Madagascar Room. Sian, our two present Malagasy volunteers, Mampionona and Heritiana, and I enjoyed our warm welcome at this special event. We are really pleased that the U.W.I. have decided to re-kindle the connection between Wales and the people of Madagascar. David Jones, Thomas Bevan and David Griffiths from West Wales were the first missionaries to Madagascar……..
It’s a very difficult time for our two volunteers to be so far away from their homes and families. It is so important that we remember them in our prayers and that we encourage them at every opportunity, especially because of all the political problems in the country at present which are causing so much pain and anxiety. They are very brave and their faith strengthens them day by day.
For those of you who may not know, the President of Madagascar, Marc Ravolomanana, was ousted by the opposition earlier this year and the country is in a state of uneasy peace at the moment. Several people have been killed or injured in the unrest during the last few months and we are hoping and praying that things will get better soon.
Mampionona from Akany Avoko, the children’s centre that we’re linked with in the village of Ambohidratrimo and Heritiana, who works at the F.J.K.M. church office in the capital, Antananarivo, arrived in October last year. Our other overseas volunteer, Rema, comes from the Presbyterian Church of North-East India in Mizoram. They help in a variety of activities in our community of Penrhys: Sunday School, Craft Club, Homework Club (both primary and secondary), teenage Discussion Group, Café, Playgroup, Football and take turns in leading worship on Friday mornings when we pray for a different country each week.
It was good therefore for our Malagasy friends to have the morning off to go to the special event in Swansea whilst Rema was ‘holding the fort’ in the café with our dedicated local volunteer, Rena, but we had to make sure that Mampionona and Heritiana were back in time for football practice at 4.30 or there would have been a lot of disappointed children and young people waiting for them!
For the first time ever, we had the opportunity last year to send two young people from Penrhys to Madgascar to be volunteers at Akany Avoko: Michael Caswell and Rebecca Egan.
It was a real eye-opener and a challenge for them in more ways than one, as well as was a unique experience which they’ll never forget. Maybe there’ll be more young people going from Wales to Madgascar to help in the future – we’ll see!

Celebrating Akany Avoko’s birthday
Mampionona, Heritiana and I had a weekend to remember at the beginning of May with a train journey to Lancaster to celebrate Akany Avoko’s 45th birthday. We have had the pleasure of receiving a young person from Akany Avoko to work with us in Penrhys since 2001.
Hanta Kely (or ‘little’ Hanta) was the first to come at the same time as Nicolas from F.J.K.M. They are now married and they have a beautiful two-year old little girl called Kezia. Llanfair contributed towards Hanta’s education after she returned home, and she is now a social worker at Akany Avoko whilst Nicolas works there part-time as an accountant.
The party was held at the Friends’ Meeting House with over 100 people coming together for this special celebration – many of them with personal links with the centre: present and previous staff and volunteers and several people who are sponsoring children and young people at Akany. There were crafts on sale made at the centre, a time-line, an impressive exhibition of photographs (including photographs from Penrhys and a special birthday card made by our children and Sian, our minister, at Llanfair café.) We heard the wonderful Millennium Choir, a local choir of children and adults and we watched the special D.V.D. showing the lives of three young Akany Avoko residents, which was very moving.
One of the day’s highlights was listening to Fabie speaking and seeing her, Mampionona and Heritiana singing and dancing together. Fabie lived and worked with us in Penrhys four years ago and went to university after she went back home to Madagascar. She’s now studying Psychology at Aberystwyth University. Like so many children in Madagascar, Fabie had a difficult, sad childhood before coming to Akany Avoko, so I felt so proud of her and all that she has achieved. She hopes to go return to Madagascar to serve as a social worker. Well done, Fabie!
Akany Avoko is one of the worthwhile projects of the charity ‘Money for Madagascar’, which makes such a difference to the lives of so many people on the island. I was privileged to go on holiday to Madagascar last summer and to visit Akany Avoko myself – a safe and happy home to at least 120 children and young people.
During my stay, I also visited the prison at Tamatave where I was impressed to learn about the valuable project, which helps 1000 prisoners to grow vegetables in order to improve their health and self-esteem and to develop useful skills. That was a truly memorable experience.