A charity health project working in West Africa has received the support of Morecambe FC’s Youth Academy.
The Academy donated surplus match kits to the charity ‘Home Leone’, which provides much-needed health care in Sierra Leone.
Rebecca Smithson, a dentist from the UK, regularly visits Africa and works for the charity in areas where even basic healthcare is unavailable.
On her recent trip, Rebecca was able to pack her suitcase full of Morecambe FC match kits, which were worn last season by the Academy’s young players.
Working out of a shipping container in the capital Freetown and in the town of Waterloo; Rebecca extracted a total of 287 teeth, some of which were severely infected and causing excruciating pain. She was also able to dispense clothing to those who needed it and the Morecambe kits proved extremely popular with locals.
Rebecca uses her holiday time to travel to the impoverished country and give her services free of charge.
She said: “I love Sierra Leone – it’s my favourite place in the world. It’s very poor and quite chaotic – there are not really any services – health care is very ad-hoc. People just try to get by day to day.”
James Dunn, the Foundation Phase Lead at Morecambe FC Academy was contacted by Rebecca’s friend Lynsey, whose boys attend the Academy. James said: “we were happy to donate the kits from last season and support the fantastic work that Rebecca does in Sierra Leone. It’s good to know that we’ve played a small part in helping those less advantaged than ourselves.”
To find out more about Home Leone, visit: https://homeleone.org/ (Morecambe FC is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
