Recent Events

Women's Challenge 5k

Hyde Park, London. 6th September 2009

Street Child Africa had a team of 25 runners; their largest ever!  It was a great day out, especially for the many mums and daughters who ran together.  After the race we were able to have a picnic in the sunshine.  A well-earned rest for aching legs!

Thank you to everyone who ran, sponsored or supported us in any way.  We raised an impressive £1,000 for street children.

Barclaycard International Staff walk Hadrian's Wall

Kevin Mills, David Coates, Lucy Jackson, Samantha Bonner and Richard Harvey share their experiences of walking Hadrian's Wall.

"What started out as a good idea back in the depths of winter was quickly becoming a reality. It had all seemed so easy when a number of like minded people in Barclaycard said they would be interested in joining me on a walk of Hadrians Wall.  Of course the weather would be great I assured everyone and the 84 miles would be so easy that we could do it in 4 days – after all that was only 21 miles a day. So the planning began

"We all trained hard for many months mainly using a local reservoir to walk around with our fully laden rucksacks much to the amusement of other joggers and cyclists. So with boots fully broken in and with as many energy bars and plasters as we could carry we set off at 5am on the 26th June on our journey north. By the time we had dropped off the hire car, got to the official wall start point (Wallsend) and handed over our luggage it was almost noon. We had a target destination to reach that evening and so we set off in good spirits not sure what lay before us.

"Within 15 minutes of the start the heavens opened and it was time to don our wet gear. It continued to rain more or less consistently for the rest of the day and we arrived at our first nights accommodation at about 5.30pm. Shoes and feet soaked through we headed for a shower and then for food in a local pub. We had walked 15 miles but it felt like a lot more and we were all in bed by 9.30pm!! (something we repeated every night on the walk).

"We rose early the next morning and were walking by 8.30 through misty rain soaked fields which left our already wet boots completely soaked again. I think we finished at about 6pm having walked 22 miles which we repeated on the 3rd day.

"At times it felt like we were on the set of a Hound of Baskervilles movie as visibility was very poor until the sun finally burnt through in the early afternoon. This was a pity especially on day 3 as this is when we walked along the best preserved parts of the wall with apparently great views although I can’t confirm this as we couldn’t see more than a few meters.

"So, onto the final day. We were about 4 miles behind where we wanted to be which doesn’t sound a lot but when that meant that we had 29 miles to complete the trek it felt a like a long way. To make matters worse the weather had completely changed again and we found ourselves walking in 26 degree heat for 11 hours. But we all managed to complete the course (and wearing roman outfits at different times during the walk) admittedly with aching limbs and very sore, blister laden feet, and won’t pretend that we felt anything other than relief when we had finished. More importantly though we had raised over £3k for Street Child Africa which made our efforts all worthwhile!"  

Street Child Africa meets Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu

Savina Geerinckx, Director of Overseas Programmes and Anne Cooper, Fundraising Manager met Archbishop Desmond Tutu before he was due
to give the opening keynote speech at the Peace Symposium, part of the 100th Rotary International Conference at the NEC.

Archbishop Tutu holds the plight of street children very dear to his heart. He is patron of many charities and in particular of an organisation working
with street children in the Western Cape.