Starfish Asia
32 Beck Lane
Beckenham
Kent BR3 4RE
UK
Telephone
+44 (0)20 8402 1914
Email
mike@starfishasia.com
Our history Starfish Asia was registered as a UK charitable Trust in 2003, but the story stretches back much further. Mike and Kerstin Wakely lived and worked in Pakistan throughout the 1980's. building relationships and becoming familiar with the needs and the problems of Pakistan, and especially of its minority Christian people. We give a brief outline of a few of the milestones that brought us to the point of establishing a Charitable Trust to raise funds to give help to needy people in Pakistan.
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The 1997 flood A terrible flood hit the city of Lahore in 1997, devastating several communities and destroying houses and livelihoods. A pastor -- Rev. Saleem Sadiq -- came to us and pleaded for help for a colommunity of 35 Christian families whose homes had been washed away. They lived by the sude of a sewage canal on the outskirts of Lahore . We responded, raised funds (largely through TEAR Fund) and restored the community to hope and dignity, building 35 simple homes including a church building and giving a whole community dignity once again.
The Fellowship of Christ
We contacted a generous donor and have been supporting the School of Christ -- now known as the Lahore Christian High School -- since 2000. |
The Blind and the Disabled
For several years we worked alongside an old Pakistani blind man by the name of Samuel John (seated in the photo above), who led a community of blind Christians in Lahore. When he died his community scattered but we found some of them again in the Ananias Home for Blind Girls run by Caritas Pakistan. Caritas was on the point of closing the Home for lack of funds. We were devastated that such a fine facility could be threatened with closure and asked how much they needed to keep the Home open. The answer was: "£200 a month". It was a turrning point. So little to achieve so much. We raised the £200 each month and are still supporting the Home that is serving Christian blind girls who would otherwise have little hope of a future.
Ashley Arshad amidst the first batch of cheap school furniture. He bought the cheapest and it didn't last very long. But it was a beginning. |
In 2003 Mike was in Karachi and woke in the middle of the night with this persistent thought -- we have to bite the bullet and register a Charity to meet the needs of the poor, especially but not exclusively in the Pakistani Christian community. We know we cannot rescue everyone -- but we know too that we have to save some! That's why we called ourselves Starfish Asia.
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Without doubt the
greatest influence that
brought about the
organization of the
Starfish Asia Fund
was our meeting with
Ashley Arshad and his
wife Seema in Lahore.
They oversaw a team of
ladies who were visiting and helping the poor in
their Christian community in Lahore.They named
their organization the 
