Creswell: Swimmers hoping to raise Africa cash

A sponsored swim is taking place at Creswell Leisure Centre on Saturday to help raise money to send some local school children on a trip of a lifetime to Africa.

The swim is the first in a series of events being planned to help around 30 children from three schools each raise £2,500 to enable them to go to Namibia in July next year.

“There are children from Heritage School in Clowne, Shirebrook School and Frederick Gent School in South Normanton,” said Angela Taylor, whose 14 year-old daughter Kimberley is one of the handful of pupils from Heritage school who has been chosen for the trip.

“It is a two-week event and the first week will see the children helping to build a playground for under-priviledged children in Namibia.”

“Then the second week will see them trekking through the desert and exploring a bit of the country.”

“Kimberley is one of seven or eight from Heritage who have been chosen to go and it’s a thrilling opportunity for them, so we’re all working hard now to try and raise the money needed.”

The trip came about after Hardwick Clinical Commissioning Group and Bolsover District Council joined forces with the SNaP Development project to explore the possibility of sending some local children to Africa on the mission to build the playground.

SNaP - South Normanton and Pinxton - Dvelopment is a communty project that was founded in 2003 with the aims of aiding community development, setting up and running a number of youth projects and improving the environment.

The group is now looking at securing longer-term funding for projects and sustainability.

“They came into the schools and talked about the Namibian project and find out who was interested,” continued Mrs Taylor.

“Those who expressed interest had to go through an interview process and then the final ones were chosen and Kimberley was one of the lucky ones.”

“The thing is, each person going needs to raise the cost themselves and it’s £2,500 per person, so we are planning lots of sponsored events, starting with this weekend’s swim.”

“It’s taking place on Saturday from 12-3pm and we hope as many people as possible will come down and show their support and help raise some money for these children to enable them to go to Africa.”