Desert kids get kick out of footie gifts
I have been fortunate to race in the Sahara on five occasions. Although I wasn’t able to finish for the first time this year, there was more than one thing I had planned to do that I did manage to achieve.
On my first visit there, I realised just how little many of the children had in the remote parts of the desert. Their lives from a very young age centred around helping the family survive with little more than subsistence living.
The Marathon Des Sables set up a charity a few years ago to try to break the cycle of poverty. It starts by teaching the mothers how to read and write, and then to learn a craft skill they can use to make things to sell to tourists.
At the same time, the mothers bring their children to the charity’s school to learn to read and write, plus enjoy what every child should – games with other children just for the fun of it.
This year, before I went, I approached everyone in the road where I live asking them to give me old children’s football kit that their kids had grown out of. Many neighbours donated shirts and shorts. Others gave me money, trusting me to use it to make a difference.
After my race was over, I went with a few others to the school and gave them the money and shirts. The school runs entirely on donations. It costs little to run in terms of wages, but it does need help, especially as Covid left little opportunity to seek support.
The shirts will either be worn by the children or sold to raise further funds.
It was an emotional morning as I witnessed the difference that the school has made to so many – the joy the kids took in running around the playground wearing the shirts, and the emotion shown by the main trustee who herself gives up most of her time to keep the school going. The fact that people who will never have any first-hand knowledge of the school cared just blew her away.
It left me feeling emotional too as I know how privileged most of us are in the UK, compared with these kids, with things we take for granted, such as schools and healthcare.
If you wish to support this school, please go to helloasso.com/associations/solidarite-marathondes-sables. And even if you can’t, please spend some time thinking about how you can make a difference to others who don’t have as much as you do. I promise you that the sense of worth it will give you is priceless.