Cumbrian firefighters have visited Kenya to help train a community save lives.
Organised by Workington Rotary, the firefighters were in Homa Bay County to help locals learn how to operate fire engines donated from Cumbria over the last few years.
The area has four engines which had been retired from service in Cumbria and replaced.
Ken Kirkwood, 81, is Workington Rotary’s international chairman and the driving force behind the project.
He said: “It all started with pencils. We donated 500,000 pencils to Africa and I made a contact with someone at the Kenyan embassy in London.
“They asked me if we could help with fire engines after the area suffered a major blaze and around 140 children died.
“Workington Rotary did so and we sent the first two fire engines in 2015 and two have just gone out.
“But the firefighters in Homa Bay County needed to be trained and Cumbria Fire & Rescue Service kindly agreed to help. We’ve just returned from three weeks there and our firefighters certainly put them through their paces.”
Ken said he got great satisfaction from helping people though the Rotary and was proud of the club’s achievements.
