Haywards Heath based charity’s fundraising heroes walk to Rome at 55 and run 10k race
While Haywards Heath based charity Lovey Foundation celebrates helping 577 children in northeastern Ghana into education since 2013, two of its supporters have been testing their stamina in Switzerland, Italy and London.
The pair aimed to attract generous sponsors so at least 100 more kids can have that start in life next September.
Sonja Vigneswaren – whose brother Armand in Brighton edits the charity’s website www.loveyfoundation.org – has endured blisters, thunderstorms and sheer exhaustion but expects to enter Rome on Saturday, October 5, after an epic walk across the Alps.
On August 10 Sonja started her epic 1,175km walk (about 730 miles) from her home near Valais in Switzerland. It’s her special way of celebrating her 55th birthday, following mainly the ancient Via Francigena pilgrims’ route.
Sonja – pictured en route at the Rocca of Radicofani, a fort in Tuscany above the Via Francigena – has defied all weathers to enable more daughters and sons of poor subsistence farmers in the rural Bawku and Binduri districts of Upper East Ghana to access free primary education – for which they must provide their own uniforms, school bags, exercise books, pens, and pencils. Lovey Foundation (UK) ships these to its partner organisation there.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, September 22 charity chair Daniel Valentine, despite feeling unwell, ‘dragged’ himself into London from his Kent home for the six miles Vitality 10,000 race in central London. This is also to raise vital funds so that next September this year’s record of 115 children staring school might be broken.
“I limped my way around the course – getting my worst time ever (one hour, 17 minutes)”, he said. “But still feeling quite proud of myself.”
“Once these children start school”, says Melvyn Walmsley, of Colwell Road, Haywards Heath, the charity’s deputy chair. “There’s no stopping them. A few have already progressed into higher education in Ghana. Some walk or cycle long distances to school.They wouldn’t dream of playing truant!”
He continued: “The whole project in Bawku District was conceived and started by a boy there, Aruk Thomas Lateef (nicknamed Lovey, meaning a kind person). He’d had to wait until he was a teenager to start school. He wanted to prevent that happening again, especially to girls. In 2012 Thomas sought help from Yaa Asare, a visiting sociology lecturer from Brighton, to set up his organisation in Bawku. On her return Yaa started some informal fundraising in Sussex and the first 10 children were supported into school in 2013. That’s how Lovey Foundation (UK) started its fundraising.”
If you would like to help Sonja or Daniel, through the work of Lovey Foundation (UK), to change young lives in rural Ghana, please visit their online fundraising pages at www.loveyfoundation.org.
Please give what you can and Gift Aid your donation if you pay UK Income or Capital Gains Tax, to add 25p to each £1 you give. Or you can write a cheque, payable to Lovey Foundation (UK), marked on the back S&D24, and post it to: Lovey Foundation (UK), c/o Flat 4 Francislea, Colwell Road, Haywards Heath RH16 4EL. To add Gift Aid, please also enclose your name, address and postcode so you can receive send you a Gift Aid Declaration form and a SAE, to send back to that address.