DSP supports The Red Rubber Ball Foundation

DSP's MD, Dev Nayak recently completed the Windsor Triathlon in an impressive 2 hours 53 minutes. Today we invite Neil Kirby from the Red Rubber Foundation to write a guest blog to find out how the money raised was spent…

A big thank you to Dev for completing the Windsor Triathlon and raising over £1,000 for The Red Rubber Ball Foundation. We are a voluntary UK based charity providing education opportunities for disadvantaged children in Africa. By raising these funds dsp have enabled one young child (called Mercy) to attend secondary school.

She lives in the Kibera slums in Nairobi – you may have seen it on Comic Relief. Lenny Henry and others attempted to live there for a week and found that they couldn’t. Conditions are truly appalling and Mercy’s family were unable to pay the school fees for her to attend secondary school.

Thanks to Dev and dsp, Mercy has been enrolled at Kola Girls High School. It is a state school based in Machakos, around three hours from Nairobi. She has completed her first term and did really well – getting a B- in her end of term exams.

The school is a boarding school, which is normal in Kenya, as this allows children to spend more time on their studies (they can get distracted doing other duties at home, like walking to collect water). The fees at Kola Girls High School are around £300 per year, meaning that dsp has now raised enough to ensure she can complete all four years at secondary school.

We know from letters received from other children just what an amazing opportunity this is for Mercy – it gives her an opportunity to complete her education and perhaps the best chance of escaping poverty.

Mercy is aware that dsp is her sponsor and we will be visiting her this summer so hope to have a photo and message from her soon.

Thank you for giving her this chance.

Neil