Blues legend Simon Milton praises Ipswich youngsters giving 10,000 books to African children

Copleston High School is donating books to the Futurestars charity for children to in Ghana to make use of. Left to right, Copleston students Mya Krejsa-Gwilliam, Zoe Stagg and Meghan Cornwell-McGarry with teacher Marc Lloyd. Picture: COPLESTON HIGH SCHOOL
Copleston High School is donating books to the Futurestars charity for children to in Ghana to make use of. Left to right, Copleston students Mya Krejsa-Gwilliam, Zoe Stagg and Meghan Cornwell-McGarry with teacher Marc Lloyd. Picture: COPLESTON HIGH SCHOOL
Mr Milton, who made more than 300 appearances for the Blues between 1986 and 1997, is director of the charity Futurestars – which aims to boost education in Ghana and Togo.
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The Gippeswyk Community Educational Trust school supported Futurestars with its kit amnesty in 2018 and 2019 by donating sporting equipment no longer needed to help the organisation’s weekly sports sessions, run by qualified coaches, for underprivileged children.

With the growth of online teaching materials and the move to a new building later this year, the Copleston Road school has been reviewing its books collection.

It has decided to donate educational textbooks to Futurestars so they can benefit children thousands of miles away.

Copleston teacher Marc Lloyd said: “With the move to the new building, we have a requirement to strip down any unneeded resources and we had a whole cupboard load of textbooks that were no longer required.

“In previous years we’ve had Simon Milton come in to collect sports equipment, so we contacted him to say we had these books as well.”

Mr Lloyd said what started as a pile of books soon started to grow, with Copleston given a container of its own to fill.

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“We’re building up the container and will go to over 10,000 books – we’re up to about 1,000 at the moment,” he said.

The project is a huge charitable effort for the school, which needs to check each book is still relevant and can be used by children abroad.

Pupils have also volunteered to list and load the books into the container.

But Mr Lloyd said it will have a “massive impact” on the educational chances of the African children.

Mr Milton said: “I am delighted that Copleston High School has once again decided to support Futurestars in 2020.

“Following the very successful Kit Amnesty in 2018 and 2019, they are now supporting us again with the donation of much needed books for our five Partner Schools.

“The Copleston pupils who have volunteered to list and load the books into the container are using this initiative as their way of giving their own time and energy to support children in West Africa who are less fortunate than themselves.

“We are indebted to Copleston High School and its pupils for their amazing drive an determination to help.”

Source: eadt.co.uk

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