The Star: October 11, 2018

24 Thursday October 11 2018
Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi
The Star
News
Take a Kid
Fishing to
go ahead
• By Ashleigh Monk
TAKE A Kid Fishing will go
ahead as planned on Sunday.
Weed eradication efforts at
The Groynes lakes in August
meant the event which starts at
9am was at risk of being postponed
due to chemicals in the
lakes – but the city council has
given the all clear.
“Weed control has been completed
for now, and it is likely
that we will need to do some
necessary follow up later in the
year,” city council head ranger
coastal and plains ​Robbie
Hewson said.
A chemical treatment that
was harmless to fish and plant
life was used to eradicate an invasive
weed, lagrosiphon major,
which was choking the lakes.
The weed, which formed
dense mats of vegetation, had
affected lakes at the popular
recreation reserve since 2014.
The reserve’s fishing lakes
were closed on August 12 and
reopened on August 23.
The weeds were then removed
by a mechanical harvester six
weeks after the spraying.
Nurse works to cure poverty
• By Sophie Cornish
A CHRISTCHURCH Hospital
nurse is doing her part to “break
a small pocket of poverty.”
In 2014, Aimee Mackey saw
a post on Facebook about a
12-year-old Ugandan boy who
had died after not receiving
medical care.
She said the post stuck with
her and she decided to donate
some money to feel better – but it
wasn’t enough.
“The caption on the post said if
he lived in the developed world,
he would have gone to school on
Monday. That stuck with me, I
felt like he followed me, he was in
my dreams,” she said.
Now, Mrs Mackey and her
friend, Melanie Sutton, support
36 children through their small
charity, Hope for Orphans International.
Located in Uganda, the organisation
leases a foster home for
orphans and runs a community
outreach programme.
The children receive full education,
adequate nutrition and
medical care.
Within the orphanage, there is
a mix of children who have been
abandoned, orphaned or their
MAKING A DIFFERENCE: Christchurch Hospital nurse
Aimee Mackey started a charity with her friend in 2014
which is changing the lives of children in Uganda.
families cannot be traced.
The community outreach programme
provides families who
are struggling with the means to
start self-sustaining projects that
will help them earn income.
Mrs Mackey is in touch daily
through Skype and Facebook
with the children and the social
worker employed by the charity.
“This enables our donors to
create meaningful relationships
with the children and receive accurate
and current updates of the
difference their financial support
is helping achieve.”
“I am so passionate about it
. . . I love that we have an opportunity
to do something that will
have a future impact . . . I want
to help break a small pocket of
poverty,” she said.
The children speak both
Lugandan and English.
“The home functions like a
family. About 18 of the children
have all grown up together since
they were two or three-yearsold.”
Mrs Mackey and her husband
Joshua visits Uganda every 12-18
months and will travel there
again in November with their
two children, eight-year-old Eden
and four-year-old Lily.
Mrs Mackey said they “scrimp
and scrounge” for the charity
where they can but paying for
school fees in Uganda can be
overwhelming.
Several fundraising events
in the past have helped to raise
money including, mufti-days, car
boot sales and sponsorship for
running half-marathons.
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