‘I’m helping people and I can see the good it’s doing’ – Meet the Sheffield grandma sending aid convoys to Africa

Over the last four years, Janet Stain, aged 73, of Crosspool, has sent clothes, wheelchairs, bandages, toiletries and just about anything else she can lay her hands on to two villages in the west African country of Gambia.

However, after recently starting work on her third 40 foot container, she says the task has now become so big she desperately needs more help.

“It is packing it all,” she says, taking a break with a well-deserved brew.

“If people could help me for just a few hours or lend us a van to get some of the stuff down to Northampton that would be amazing.”

Janet - who works as a tour guide at Renishaw Hall and gives history talks in her spare time - sources help for her aid project from as wide a range of sources as you can imagine.

Sheffield schools including Tapton, Broomhill, Lydgate, Nether Green and Pye Bank have been ‘amazing’, she says, donating no less than 400 chairs to her last shipment.

Also invaluable have been Hassop Hall in Derbyshire who gave her dozens of old sheets for bandages and Carracks in Crookes who donated ‘tons’ of paint to decorate the village schools’ walls.

Local manufacturer Nick Firth has also given hundreds of tiles and - along with another Sheffield businessman who does not want to be named - also pays for the container’s £4,000 passage to Africa.

All the aid she collects goes to two villages in Gambia, N’yofelleh and Baro Kunda.

Over the last 20 years, the coastal N’yofelleh has been transformed with new schools and hospitals while the more Baro Kunda is still very much a backwater.

“Some of the people are so poor and even if they just get a get a sack of clothes or bedding they can sell it and get some rice or keep it if they need it,” said Janet.

“People say why do you send second hand knickers but if you haven’t got any they are great.

“In N’yofelleh we have a clinic now but in the inland village there are girls there dying in childbirth. I just thought I have got to help these people.

“I do it because I enjoy it. I am helping people and I can see the good it is doing.”

In her spare time away from guiding at Renishaw and organising aid, she gives talks on history and genealogy with her specialist subject being vintage underwear.

“‘Knickers: a brief history’ I call it,” she laughs.

It was during one of these talks she met someone who already ran a Gambia charity and got involved from there.

“You don’t tend to start things like this in your 70s,” added Janet.

“I can’t believe at my age I have achieved it. I am quite chuffed really.”

To find out more, donate or help, call Janet on 0114 230 2916.