Members of the Student Council prepare and deliver an assembly to raise awareness of the College Charity

Ruth Bentley, Lara Langeveld and Tom Court introduced the College charity, Faraja in assemblies this week. They delivered a presentation, which was prepared by themselves along with Jess Dunn, Alice Priestly and Michelle Small. BTEC Year 12 also gave some information about their idea of doing a toy collection to send to the orphanage and The Lowreys, a Sixth Form band launched their new song, Confessions which is dedicated to Faraja and will be released soon with some of the proceeds going towards the College charity. As a College we raised £5300 for Education for All last year, we hope to beat that and have set ourselves a target of raising £6000 this year.

Faraja is a small town near Arusha in Tanzania, which is located within the continent of Africa. It is very close to Mount Kilimanjaro, which is the highest mountain in Africa. Tanzania has a population of 40,312,160. The average life expectancy is 5o years of age for men and 52 for women.  HIV and Aids is widespread with an estimated 1.6 million people living with HIV/Aids. There has been a recorded 160,000 deaths from HIV. Over a third of the population are living below the poverty line according to the world health organisation. The consequences of these conditions are that a large of proportion of children are orphans. The Student Council like the idea of setting up a means of establishing renewable energy in Faraja and the ability to ensure that the orphans are provided with clean water. This needs to be developed by building a well on the actual orphanage site. Clearly this is going to cost an incredible amount of money. Last year, as a College we raised £5,300. This year, we want to be able to set a target of £6000 to enable Helen Ross, the Chair of Faraja Support to set up an orphanage and so that we can say that Guthlaxton assisted her in providing clean water for the children.

For more information, please visit the Faraja Support Website.

Published on Wednesday 15th October 2008 at 09:00