School's backpack project to help African children
Students at a Telford school have packed over 30 backpacks full of equipment to be sent to some of the poorest schoolchildren in Africa.
The youngsters from Hadley Learning Community have been supporting the backpack project run by the Mary's Meals charity which sees backpacks filled with basic learning tools, such as pencils and notepads, as well as items like soap and toothpaste, and then sent to schoolchildren across the world.
The decision to support the cause was taken by the school's parliament, which then arranged an appeal for donations of backpacks together with other items.
This has produced over 30 fully equipped school backpacks, with representatives of Telford Centre Rotary Club going along to help members of the school parliament in the packing.
The club promoted the idea to the school and arranged for a Mary's Meals speaker to attend a school assembly, and is also arranging for them to be sent off.
The parliament decided that any items that could not be used for the backpacks should be donated to the Greenfields Africa charity based on the Hortonwood industrial estate in Telford.
These will be added to Greenfields Africa's collections of clothing to be sent out for schoolchildren who live in the refugee camps in Syria.
Mrs Samantha Armstrong, the deputy head, who worked with the rotary club to promote the project, said the pupils had been excited throughout the whole process.
"They have enjoyed the challenge of securing the donation of clothing backpacks and other items to help other children less fortunate than themselves.”
Mary's Meals is a charity which provides one good meal to some of the world's poorest children every school day. Its backpack project began in 2005, and since then more than 500,000 filled backpacks have been sent from supporters across the UK and Ireland to children receiving Mary's Meals.
