Prospective Winchester MP Steve Brine, his wife Susie and one-year old daughter Emily joined the Winchester Walk for Children today (pictured).
The annual event is organised by volunteers from the Rotary Club of Winchester. Each year, they walk for a chosen charity and this year's charity is Hope and Homes for Children.
The organisation works with children, their families and communities across Central and Eastern Europe and Africa, to ensure that children grow up in an environment where they have the opportunity to fulfil their potential. We move children out of institutions into family-based care, help keep together families at risk of breakdown due to the pressures of poverty, disease or conflict, and work to prevent child abandonment.
The walks started and finished in Abbey Gardens, central Winchester and varied from one-mile through the city centre to 20 miles out into the local countryside and back!
The Rotary Club has set a target of raising £30,000 to help fund a new Family Support Centre on the outskirts of Kiev and the general work of Hope and Homes for Children in Ukraine.
Steve Brine said; “We’ve all seen the shocking images of neglect on our TV screens from, among other places Ukraine, and this was a chance to do something to help. I think the Rotary Club is one of those organisations that makes Britain strong and I applaud them for choosing this excellent charity for the Winchester Walk this year. With a hungry, teething baby in tow we were somewhat restricted to the length of walk we could undertake but every little helps as someone once said and the local volunteers organising today did us proud.”
More information ...
You can find out more about the Winchester Walk via www.winchesterwalk.co.uk
You can visit Home and Homes for Children via www.hopeandhomes.org
And you can find Winchester Rotary Club online at www.winchesterrotary.co.uk