3:00pm Monday 14th December 2009
By Alicia Kelly
A CHARITY set up after the death of a former Malvern schoolgirl has taken on its first international project.
The Joanna Brown Trust has pledged £25,000 to build a dormitory at an outdoor activity centre for children in Mumbai, India.
The move was described as a huge step by Miss Brown’s brother Richard who helped set up the charity after his sister fell to her death while walking in Siberia. The trust reflects Miss Brown’s love of sport by raising money for sporting equipment and encouraging greater involvement in sport.
The former Dyson Perrins pupil died, aged 30, while walking along the shores of Lake Baikal in 2008. Since then, the charity set up in her name has gone from strength to strength, raising nearly £50,000 within its first year. The latest project sees the trust pair up with Magic Bus, a charity that helps give a better future to children living in poverty in India.
Magic Bus’s centre for learning and development already offers activity programmes to more than 3,000 children each year but the new dormitory will see that increased dramatically.
It will give the centre room for between 24 and 26 additional children and could enable more than 2,000 extra children to visit the centre each year. Construction work will start in February 2010 and is scheduled to be completed by autumn 2010.
Helen Hagan, from the Joanna Brown Trust, said: “Supporting Magic Bus fits exactly with our aim of encouraging young people in sport. “We hope this is one of many opportunities to extend the reach of the trust beyond the areas in which Joanna lived and worked.
“Thousands of Mumbai children will come to associate Joanna Brown’s name with a top quality sports facility. Without this investment, this would never be possible.”
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