College student Isaac Pullan is walking the 10 miles to school each day in May to raise funds for African Promise and bring attention to the fact that so many children around the world have no choice but to do the same.
Isaac, from Kirkoswald in Cumbria and a year 12 student at Ullswater Community College, settled on the challenge during a walk to school during lockdown earlier this year. In his words: “it dawned on me that a lot of young children around the globe have to walk a similar distance to attend school and I wondered what kind of education they were walking for, what state for learning walking 10 miles each day leaves a child in, and what other factors these children have to deal with to obtain an education.”
Isaac subsequently found African Promise when he searched the term ‘walk to school Africa’ and was inspired by the work we do to make the walk to school a worthwhile one for children across our partner schools and by the efforts the children go to in order to attend school and get an education.
Isaac will be waking at 4am each morning in order to have enough time to cover the circa 10 mile journey on foot – a walk he expects to take about 3 hours – and still arrive at school on-time. He expects to rack up more than 200 miles over the course of the month (even walking on the Spring Bank Holiday’s and during half term!).
We are hugely inspired by the efforts of Isaac – it’s not every day you hear of a students voluntarily waking up at 4am to walk to school – and we will be behind him every step of the way with moral support, blister plasters and fresh pairs of walking socks!
If you too would like to support Isaac in his epic challenge you can do via his fundraising page at justgiving.com/isaac-pullan