Friends of Mikoroshoni Primary School treasurer raises £1,400 for school's meal programme with virtual Land's End to John o'Groats walk

Over £1,400 has been raised for the feeding programme at Mikoroshoni Primary School in Mombasa, Kenya after the treasurer of the school’s friends group – set up by a Middleton couple – walked the virtual distance of Land’s End to John O’Groats.

Keith Trinnaman, trustee and treasurer for The Friends of Mikoroshoni Primary School, completed the 874-mile challenge over 113 days, walking an average of 7.5 miles per day, totalling 258 hours of activity.

He said: “Many of these children have to walk many miles to attend school and so I thought I'd challenge myself and walk the distance from Land’s End to John O'Groats.

“I am so pleased to have raised so much for the feeding programme at Mikoroshoni Primary School, and quite chuffed with the achievement. Thanks to you all that have supported and donated to the cause; it’s really very much appreciated.”

 

 

The Friends of Mikoroshoni Primary School was established in March 2000 by John and Yvonne Brooker, of Middleton. They had originally travelled to Mombasa with friends, John and Pat Lloyd from Stoke on Trent, in August 1996 for a holiday, but donated their holiday funds for a roof after seeing the local primary school.

The school was a roofless shack when the four friends discovered it, but it is now a two-storey building with running water, flushing toilets and electricity and has seen some of its students move on to college and even university.

Mikoroshoni Primary School provides free local education for children from the very poorest of families, who might otherwise never attend school.

In 2008, due to many children coming to the school hungry, the Friends charity began to feed the younger children with daily school meals. For some, the daily school meal is the only meal received.

Keith added: “One of the challenges we faced a few years back was keeping the children engaged during lessons, and discovered that many of them had not eaten properly for days and were therefore not able to concentrate.

“To overcome this we decided that any child attending the school would receive one meal a day and so we started our feeding programme at Mikoroshoni.”

In 2009 trustees were able to extend the feeding programme to include the five older classes.

The yearly cost of the feeding programme is approximately £8,000, which equates roughly to £30 per child per year.

Donations can still be made via Virgin Money Giving:

• https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/KeithTrinnaman4