Mayo residents to climb Mount Kenya for charity

TABS International have officially headed off to climb Mount Kenya.

The team headed off yesterday evening and are set to climb Africa’s second-highest peak later this week.

The UK-based charity, founded by the mother of Mayo resident Ellen Sanders, is raising funds to install a water borehole on the land that will become the only secondary school and vocational training centre in the Kenyan slum of Kiandutu.

The team will meet the children, teachers and volunteers at the project in Kiandutu, on the outskirts of Thika, and visit the land of the water hole before moving on to Mount Kenya to begin their 5000-metre ascent.

They are well on the way to raise their goal of £25,000, having raised €15,000 so far, with the majority of the fundraising being done in Ireland, including a music session in Westport last month.

TABS International currently provides primary education to 500 Kenyan students, as well as feeding them. Without the charity, these children would not have access to education. 

Previously speaking to The Mayo News, Ms Sanders explained: “My mum, bless her, left some money in her will, and with those funds we've purchased a small plot of land about a 15-minute journey outside the slum and that is where we are going to plant and base the majority of our secondary school and provide accommodation for children, so it will be a boarding school as well as a secondary school. “

She continued: “Everything we do as TABS is done through our sister charity TABS Kenya, which is working on the ground in Kenya, and we have a board of trustees, who are all the local Kenyans that support the project and are our key partners.

“They said to us ‘we really want to show these children what life is like outside of the slum and give them access to opportunities’, you know, just so they can get a taste of a different way of life, and in Kenya, really, the route out of poverty really is still through education.”

Urging the importance of building the new school, Ms Sanders explained how there is no other school in the slum they work in. 

“If we weren't in there delivering our project, those children just wouldn't be going to school. So that's 500 plus children that wouldn't be at school, wouldn't be eating a regular meal, so we're talking about real basic needs being met. 

She added: “The land that we've bought will also be a sort of vocational training centre, so not only will they get academic education, but they will have space to grow food, maybe have some animals, to teach them other sorts of wider life skills.”

With the charity close to her heart for multiple reasons, one being ‘carrying on the legacy of [her] mother’, Ms Sander’s has called on people to support the charity to make a positive change in the world. 

For more information, or to donate, see the TABS International website, or the GoFundMe page.