A woman will be walking almost 100 miles to help raise money for a Bristol charity which supports children and young people at risk of exclusion. The charity is close to Sophia Brown's heart because of the experience she had with her own sons when they were at school.
Sophia, a qualified walking instructor who set up her own walking group, Steppin Sistas, is used to long walks but rarely walks more than 10 miles. It’s a challenge that she has thought about doing for a long time and is now looking forward to supporting a local charity which is entirely self funded.
Sophia will be walking alone along the Kennet and Avon canal. It will be the first time she has done a walk of such scale and she is expecting to complete the hike in five days, stopping at B&Bs along the way and hopes to raise £2,000 for her chosen charity.
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Reparations Bristol Youth Project provides free educational youth projects to young people aged 11-16 of African and Caribbean descent who are at risk of exclusion from school and society. All Sophia’s children are grown up now but she still remembers the difficulties she encountered when her son was excluded from school following a car accident.
She said she had difficulties bringing them up due to a school system that didn’t understand learning difficulties and the institutional racism they experienced. Sophia, who works in youth services said she is passionate about the wellbeing of young people and hopes the funds she raises through walking will help to keep the charity going.
Sophia said: “The reason I’m supporting this is because when my boys were back in school they were getting excluded for having learning difficulties. They were excluded for behaviour but it turns out they had learning difficulties but they didn’t look at it like that back then.
“When my son got knocked over in a hit and run, we nearly lost him. When the car hit him in the head it impacted his behaviour, he’s fine now but they didn’t look at that at school.
“Back then it was the word naughty. He was always excluded and he went into a special needs school. It was hard work, I was a single parent.
“It’s a very good cause, I’m passionate about young people and I work with them anyway. They are not getting any funding so I thought I could raise money to keep it going.”
Sophia will be walking from Bristol to Reading along the Kennet and Avon canal in May 2023. She hopes to raise £2,000 for Reparations Bristol . You can support her walk here .
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