Fundraising for Kenyan school

Story: Schola Cashdan | Photos: Rob Hindle

Firs Hill ESOL Level 1 students, tutors, families and friends organised a fundraising event for a school project in Kenya in February.

A big thank you to everyone who helped and Mrs Dina Martin, Headteacher, and Kath Hobson of Firs Hill School, for making it happen. More thanks to Rasha Hadi for designing the invitations and Faeza Scott for the cheesecake. We are grateful also to Rob Hindle from the WEA (Workers’ Educational Association), the course organiser who supported us and attended the event. We raised an amazing amount of £700!

Here are the students’ accounts of their experience.

Story writers: Amal Ahmed, Deka Mohamed, Fatima Al-Hidabi, Khadra Yusuf, Layla Husein, Manal Al-Hamidi, Masarat Bibi, Nargis Shakil, Noreen Kousar, Roda Oogle, Safia Ahmed, Samar Mohammed, Sobia Bi and Sobia Shah.

The planning stage

First we talked about the event and looked at the website (www.elimuaction.org) to find out about the project. We had a meeting to decide the details of the event. We organised ourselves in small groups and one group prepared the presentation to explain about the event. Invitations were then designed and sent out.

The activities

People suggested different types of food to sell. We also planned to have activities such as beauty and makeup, henna decorations, massage and hair styling. We had many other items like toys, books, creams and lotions, handbags, jewellery and ornaments.

Future improvement

Next time we will assign ourselves to do different jobs and put someone to be in charge of each section. We will buy cutlery and bags to serve the food and have boxes for cash collection. In future we will also display all the items and put on the prices before we start selling.

How we felt

“On that day I felt excited and delighted because it was my first time to do something for charity!” Layla Husein “We felt very happy after the event and we think we did a magnificent job!” Safia and Deka

“We felt very excited and happy because we helped to raise money for the Kenya school project.” Masarat and Amal “It was a lovely day and I got great experience of how to organise a fundraising event.” Sobia Shah “After the event I felt very proud of myself because I had done something good for someone who needs help.” Noreen Kousar

“We felt very happy after the event because we all did a fabulous job for this noble cause.” Sobia Bi and Nargis