UK: Worcester school governor to run marathon for Zimbabwe medical centre

By worcesternews.co.uk

ENGLAND: An athletic school governor will take on the challenge of a sponsored marathon around a circuit in Worcester.

Over 1,000 students and staff at Blessed Edward Oldcorne Catholic College will cheer on Frank Tota as he runs the 26.2-miler, or 105.5 laps of the 400-metre athletic track at Nunnery Wood Sports Centre.

This is to help raise funds to build a roof on the partly-built Nyandoro Medical Centre in Zimbabwe in a small village in the Nyanga region.

Mr Tota competes in the veterans 65 category for Worcester Athletic Club and events in Malvern at the Worcestershire Beacon 7, Norwich and Exeter were among his runs last year.

Six female athletes from Zimbabwe will join him for the 105.5 laps of the centre’s 400-metre athletic track, with students and staff also set to dip in for portions of the run.

Deputy principal of the school, Sonya Thomas, said: “Back in 2014, when I was working at John Henry Newman Catholic College in Chelmsley Wood, there was a student who told us about his mum – Agnes Tefani’s connection to Nyandoro in Zimbabwe and how the village there was great suffering with lack of nearby medical provision.

“Corpus Christi parish in Stechford, Birmingham, had helped them build a small school and provided uniforms and other school provisions.”

Mrs Thomas continued: “So, in 2014, we started fundraising, initially hoping to build for £9,000 which was a quote at the time.

“With the money coming in we started by paying for the architectural design.

“All of this was done by school fundraising, some help from the Parish and the local primary school.”

The journey was not without hurdles, with Mrs Thomas explaining: “Political turmoil and hyperinflation in Zimbabwe pushed up prices, making it far more costly to build the medical centre.

“Covid affected Zimbabwe badly too.

“The roof is going to cost £25,000.

“We’d like lots of Catholic schools to work together to raise money, but schools require assurances that funds are being used properly and therefore we need to pay into an official charity.”

Mr Tota will run the marathon on Tuesday (July 9), which is set to begin at 2pm after the school’s sports day.