Following the very successful appeal in 2019, the Barrow Hills 2020 Lent Appeal again supported the UK based grassroots charity ‘Change 1’s Life’.
The charity aims to assist people in Sub-Saharan Africa who are victims of poverty, natural disaster or catastrophe. Change 1’s Life has children at the heart of its work and helps to supply food, clean water, clothes, medical aid and education.
This year, the Barrow Hills appeal supported the charity’s School Building Project. Change 1’s Life will be transforming shipping containers into solar powered classrooms and eventually a whole sustainable school with all the infrastructure necessary for children to learn and play. Initially the school will be for 50 children but the plan is to grow and accommodate 150.
The primary focus of the Barrow Hills Lent Appeal was to collect classroom items for the children to use in their new school. These included colouring pens and pencils, writing pencils, rubbers, notebooks and exercise books, age appropriate work books, rulers, pencil cases, writing pens and calculators, trainers, football boots and even laptops.
Rather than trying to raise money, all children took part in an ‘awareness event’ during the week commencing 9th March to remind them of what the School was doing and why:
Children in Key Stage 1 completed a variety of physical tasks, ranging from laps around the garden, to trike rides in their PE lessons.
Years 3 and 4 took part in a five-mile ‘awareness walk’ cross country to partner school King Edward’s Witley and back again to Barrow Hills, with children enjoying hot chocolate and cake at the halfway point!
Middle-Prep had an opportunity to build life skills, while supporting the Lent Appeal. Before heading to Witley station the children learnt how to check train times and prices, At the station they bought their tickets and carefully selected which platform they needed, as well as seeing how many stops there were and whether the trains would be on time (they must have had luck on their side as there were no delays).
In Godalming, the children were split into smaller groups to begin hunting through charity shops choosing items they thought would be great for the school development project. They thought carefully about what would be useful and the benefits and disadvantages of new compared to second hand items. All whilst talking to interested members of the public what they were doing and why. Mr Andrade was proud of all the children and delighted to see them use their numerical skills in a real life setting. Fun was had by all and it was excellent to see the diverse range of purchases, from stationary, rugby balls and educational board games to a microscope and telescope.
Upper Prep were extremely helpful in sorting all the donations and they await collection in the near future.
Thank you to everyone for their support of this year’s Lent Appeal and we look forward to an update from Edmilson Angelo, Director and the team at Change 1’s Life.
