William Duncan recently completed his Highams Park career after finishing his A-levels and he is now is taking a gap year before moving onto further study in higher education.

However, unlike many people, William has chosen to spend three months of his gap year doing voluntary work as a teacher in Kenya. Whilst at the school William was an active member of the School Council and frequently played a leading role in organising fund raising activities for charities. He has clearly taken this forward into his current work. We are very pleased to hear from him and proud of his work.

He raised £3,000 to finance the trip and has gone with the voluntary organisation Global Vision International.

He left for Africa at the end of January and he is planning to relate his experiences via email which we will post here as they arrive. William hasn't got access to the web and email at his school and has to go to an Internet Cafe so he can send these messages. You can read them below. The most recent is first. 

Good luck William, we look forward to hearing from you in Kenya, and when you get back!

William and the Desks

In one of William's messages we learnt that the facilities in the school where he is working are so poor the children do not even have any desks to work at. The School Council, when they heard this, agreed to fund the relatively small amount of £100 that was needed to buy the wood needed for the desks and to pay for a local carpenter to make the desks on site. The results of our donation can be seen in the pictures.

Clearly the school in Kenya doesn't have anything like the facilities we have, but our gift will help to improve the education the children receive enormously. A fantastic use of the money raised by pupils in the school from the various charity events that are held. 

The first pictures shows the wood that was bought lying waiting to be used.

The second picture shows the carpenter making the desks. Certainly not like the factory made ones we have.

The third picture shows the finished desks before they are put into use. A lot different from the facilities we are used to!