CAIRO TO CAPE TOWN CHALLENGE:Schools in Ireland are being twinned with African schools in a new initiative to raise awareness and funds

GETTING FROM Cairo to Cape Town isn’t easy, but students can do it without leaving the country.

Across Ireland, primary and post-primary schools are taking part in Link Community Development’s challenge, which aims both to raise funds for schools in five African countries and to teach Irish children about sustainable development. Each school, club, business, or group organises fundraising events, with the amount raised translating into kilometres on a map of Africa. On March 26th, all the monies raised will be added up and the total distance marked on a master map. Link hopes to raise €30,000 to meet its goal.

Alice Connolly (17) and Ruth Reynolds (16), both students at Newcourt School in Bray, Co Wicklow, have taken part in the Link programme.

“We’ve linked up with Rinjhaza school in Uganda,” Ruth explains. “We wanted to see what the culture was like over there, and we’ve exchanged letters with them. We’ve seen different phrases in their languages, and we saw that they had made dolls out of banana skins. The dolls are really complicated – that’s a skill we wouldn’t have. Over here, when we want something, we just go and buy it but they have to use what they have locally.”

Alice says that Link has given her class a chance to get to know people from a different country. “We sent over cameras and they took pictures of their food, their sports, and the children in each class. The class sizes are so much bigger than in Ireland, and life is that bit harder because they don’t have electricity or as many books as we do.”

The students at Newcourt have given their correspondence with Rinjhaza pride of place in their school hall. They’re not the only people raising funds for education in African countries. Matthew Mellotte, Philip O’Dwyer and Fiachra O’Regan are Transition Year students at the Cistercian College in Roscrea, Co Tipperary. The boys, along with the rest of their class, went to Dublin and carried out collections for Link around the city. They have also organised a non-uniform day and a table quiz. “The money we raise will be invested into teaching and giving schoolchildren better opportunities,” says Philip. “This has been one of the more interesting TY projects for us. We felt that a lot of schools would be raising money for Haiti, but the difficulties of Africa remain as pressing as ever.”

Link Community Development was recently awarded an EU grant, worth €1 million over three years, to recruit Irish post-primary schools to their programme, which twins Irish and African schools. The organisation conducts its work in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, South Africa and Uganda.

“Ultimately, this understanding will encourage them to make choices and take actions that will improve the lives of children in Africa,” says Cathal O’Keeffe of Link. “LCD Ireland is currently twinning 30 Irish schools with schools in Africa. We are planning to increase the number of links to 75 in the next three years.”

The organisation is about to launch a new programme, targeted specifically at TY students, which will see it delivering workshops to TY students on development and global issues. Link hopes that the classes will provide students with the skills to deliver development education workshops in their own and neighbouring schools and clubs.

Link’s Cairo to Cape Town Challenge is expected to finish by March 26. See lcd.ie