Our School's Success

Life Changing Expedition to Kenya

After 18 months of fund raising, 15 students and 2 staff from Bebington High Sports College travelled to Kenya with Camps International this summer.

The aim of the expedition was to complete project work in local villages and communities. This included undertaking an animal census, building electrical elephant fences and general sanctuary maintenance through working on the tree nursery and learning wilderness skills.

The team also helped with road filling, brick making, repairing roads and participating in activities in local schools plus making elephant dung paper products, which would be sold to tourists to raise income for the local community.

Throughout the month, they were involved in safari game drives, visiting Masai villages to see how they lived and meeting Morani, the tame, endangered, black rhino. They also learned how industrial uprisings in Kenya have changed some of the local traditions.

Another objective of the trip, was the ascent up Mt Kenya. The team were successful in their adventure challenge reaching the summit after 4 hard days trekking to Point Lenana, at 16,355ft. Although they encountered a few problems the group overcame them by sheer determination and supported each other well during this fantastic achievement.

The 17 hours travelling in two days was quite stressful and the students found Nairobi was a bit of a culture shock, as their journey passed by big, rich houses to slums in less than five minutes.

The highlight of the trip was hearing the laughter and seeing the smiles on the faces of the children in the schools and realising that the past two years fundraising by bag packing, selling refreshments, attic sales, holding raffles, sponsored walks etc was well worthwhile now.

The students would like to thank all who helped in any way- parents, the school and local businesses including Sweettenhams the Chemist who let them have malaria tablets – which were essential – at a cost price.