Member Article

Lynemouth Power backs Youth Group’s mission to Kenya

Lynemouth Power Station in South East Northumberland is using its Community Fund to support a group of eight students travelling thousands of miles to Africa this month to help a village get clean and safe drinking water and a new school.

The Power Station has donated £1,500 to year 12 students from The Northumberland Church of England Academy and the County Council’s Northumberland Youth Service to help towards the trip.

While in Kenya, the students will be working in schools debating subjects with Kenyan teenagers on issues such as ‘should girls receive an education’, as well as discussing cultural differences and similarities.

The group will then move south to work for a week helping to build a school and digging a mile long trench so a village can have water. Currently the women and girls in the village have to walk seven miles to collect enough water for everyone to use. This takes up approximately two full days per week and means that education and employment opportunities are extremely limited.

Trip co-ordinator Mike Kelcey, from The Northumberland Youth Service, said: “The students have been working extremely hard to raise £2,000 each towards their flights, inoculations and the trip itself. To help reach their target they’ve run a tuck shop in school, hosted quiz nights, race nights and a coffee morning as well as researching and writing funding applications.

“This is going to be a fantastic learning opportunity that will help them to develop links with Kenyan teenagers as well as important life skills including team work, communication, problem solving, budgeting and project management. We are extremely grateful to the team at Lynemouth Power for their generous donation.”

Deborah Walton, finance director at Lynemouth Power Station, recently joined the group to hear about their preparations. She said: “The energy and enthusiasm of the students is fantastic. They’ve clearly put a great deal of thought and effort into organising this trip.

“It’s an excellent opportunity for them to experience a different culture and make a positive difference to the people and communities they’ll be working with, as well as learning more about themselves and the world they live in.”

Student Nathan Whitmarsh, age 17, explains: “We started in a room with no destination, no plan and no money. Once we agreed on the destination we’ve worked hard together to develop a plan to raise the funds.

“We experienced some setbacks and barriers in the planning stages but the skills we’ve learned about overcoming obstacles will benefit us in Kenya and help us as we go into our final year at school and beyond. We’re all excited about the project and I’m sure we’ll be telling our grandchildren about it 60 years’ time.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Amy Maughan, Contributor .