A PAIR of Wyre Forest volunteer aid workers are urging residents to sew clothing and knit blankets for Kenyan orphans which the duo can take with them when they travel to Africa.

Stourport resident, Bernadette Munnelly, and her Button Oak friend, Annie Austin, recently visited the African orphanage with the aid group, Hope and Kindness Ministry, helping feed and care for the site's 32 orphans and nearby villagers.

Miss Munnelly said: "To be honest, I was challenged last year because I've always done work for charity but I was really challenged in my heart on how much I actually do. I've collected money before but never gone out there but found I had to.

"Having travelled there, I had a chance to go back to my normal life or do something for the orphans. When you see a grandmother having to look after four children who can't look after themselves it changes you."

The orphanage, near the village of Kosele, is run by a Kenyan husband and wife team who employ local people to help feed, educate and care for the children, many of whom were orphaned by the Aids epidemic.

After collecting £116 from Stourport shops, at Easter, Miss Munnelly, 51, and Miss Austin, 63, are now launching an appeal to raise money for the village and collect children's clothing and bedding to take back to the orphanage.

Miss Munnelly added: "We just need people to get their sewing machines out and supply basic items. The girls wear long dresses and skirts and the boys wear shorts and shirts."

More than £1,400 per month is needed for buying food and medicines for villagers, covering the orphanages running costs and a long-term scheme to build a well in an area routinely hit by drought.

Any cash raised through the appeal is being matched, pound for pound, by the Hermitage Way resident's employer npower, (lower case correct) in Worcester, where she works as a sales adviser.

Miss Munnelly and Miss Austin, of Button Oak, are storing donated items at Bewdley's Riverside Church and Kidderminster's Woolwise, Lower Mill Street, before travelling out with the Redditch-based Hope and Kindness Ministry, later this year.

For further information, call Miss Munnelly on 01299 879464 or log on to www.hopeandkindness.org