Falconer Home
The Falconer Home came into existence in 1947, established by
Lilias Falconer who was born in Manchester on the 15th July 1915.
At the age of 15 she was telling her family of the call on her life to go to
Africa “to look after babies and children”.
In order to fulfil her vision Miss Falconer applied to Medical agencies for the opportunity to train as a nurse but, at first, all of her applications were refused until 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, when she was accepted into nursing, trained by the Salvation Army. After a course in tropical medicine she sailed for Africa. There she saw the plight of little babies, left to die when their mothers died in childbirth. After agreeing to care for one such child, Luke Fundulu, five more were quickly brought to her and, with her six babies, Lilias went further into the bush where she established her Children’s Home and Orphanage, which continues today, in the small village of Kabulamema.
It was Miss Falconer’s wish that her work would continue by the children she raised and the success story of the Home is that some of the children have stayed and when ‘Mama’ was ‘called to her rest’ they were trained, willing, ready and able to continue the running of the Home.
Today the general administration of the Home is undertaken by Simon Samutala who came to the Home as a baby, just two days old and now, in his sixties, oversees the running of the Home and the needs of an ever increasing family, although he is following in Mama Falconer’s footsteps by training some of the children, particularly Elvis, to take over from him.
St.Margaret’s Church has been linked with The Falconer Home for more than 70 years and supports the work financially, through voluntary donations of parcels of clothing and other provisions and, most importantly, in prayer.
Several church members have long-standing, personal, connections with the Home and our link is now maintained by Duncan, Susan, Nicholas and Megan Stansfield (seen here with Simon),who fulfilled a long held dream to visit The Falconer Children’s Home in August 2016 and returned with many happy memories plus many pictures.
If you would like to know more about this amazing lady and the place she created visit www.thefalconertrust.org where you can join a mailing list to receive a quarterly newsletter, obtain a copy of the book that tells the full story of Lilias’ adventure, “Mama Ndoma – The Story of Lilias Falconer, The Lady with the Golden Heart” by Pat Webb, or a CD of the children singing