Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Kenya’s fight is one of survival
Frampton shocked by starvation and crippling poverty
CARL Frampton admits nothing could have prepared him for the heartbreaking images he witnessed in Kenya.
The 30-year-old boxing hero spoke out after spending four days in the country with wife Christine in support of Trocaire’s Christmas Appeal.
This year’s campaign, entitled Until Love Conquers Fear, aims to raise more than £1million to help support thousands of people in some of the poorest parts in the world.
Carl admitted: “It completely opened our eyes.
“We were warned before we left of what it would be like, but I don’t think anything could have prepared us for what we saw.”
During their trip he and Christine visited the Mukuru slum, one of Africa’s largest, where poverty, disease and violence are rife.
They also spent a day at a health clinic in Turkana in northern Kenya where the couple met young mothers and babies receiving emergency food.
Carl said: “It’s only when you get to see the conditions first-hand that you realise how bad it is.
“It puts things in perspective. You could never imagine these conditions anywhere in the world.”
The Mukuru slum in the capital Nairobi is home to 900,000 people.
Carl explained: “It is one of the biggest slums in the world, never mind in Africa.
“It was just row upon row of tin huts, with people living in the middle of raw sewage, living in filth.
“You had kids running around in these disease-ridden areas, and this was in part of the capital city. It is incredible to think people have to live like this.”
During their trip to the slum, Carl and Christine paid a special visit to a local boxing club.
The former twoweight world champ told the Mirror: “It was a tin hut with square carpet on the floor which acted as the ring
“There were 20 to 25 kids around. That was as many as they could get at short notice as many others were out working.
“They had two pairs of MMA gloves and one set of pads. It was great to see this in the middle of a slum. Nobody knew who I was, they were just happy to see some new faces.”
The Belfast couple also visited the Turkana region, a barren semi-desert landscape which is home to about a million people.
Carl explained: “We discovered 90% of the people there are malnourished. “When we visited the feeding centre in Turkana there were no men around, just women and kids. “That’s because men walk 200km to Uganda with their cattle to find a watering hole so livestock don’t die.
“They also bring water back to their families.”
It was at the centre that Carl and Christine met a mother and her two children whose lives had been impacted by HIV.
Carl said: “The mother had HIV and one of her kids who was just three years old and was also HIV positive.
“Thankfully the baby will survive, thanks to the support of Trocaire. The medication the baby is getting means there is a 99.9% chance that it will not contract HIV.
“It puts any of my problems into perspective.”
For more information on Trocaire’s work or to donate go to www.trocaire. org or call 0800 912 1200.