One of the best things about Educate the Kids is the wide variety of people who support us.  As the phrase has it, we’re of all faiths and none, but we’re all united by our desire to help the children who are the focus of our efforts.  

Greg Pyle is a typical supporter. He hails from Newcastle, worked in Ireland for a while and now lives in Yorkshire near Yvonne Craig, who, along with her mother Maureen, is one of the key people behind the charity.  He also worked alongside Yvonne’s husband at his church and it was as a result of this connection that he attended a show that Educate the Kids put on and was, as he explained, “touched by what they were doing. I think that by learning about the charity it helped our own children understand how lucky they are to live in the West and have almost everything they might want.

“As a result of seeing that presentation by Educate the Kids, we wanted to sponsor some Kenyan children the same age as ours, which we did.  We’ve also been to Kenya twice. I took my kids the first time and then my wife and I went in June 2017.  She had just done a PGCE (teacher training qualification) and part of her training required her to go to a ‘non-mainstream’ school and she asked if she could do this in Kenya.  She got the go-ahead and off we went!

“It is an amazing experience to visit the school in Kenya.  It’ s very humbling to see how grateful the kids are for everything we do for them. They are somuch poorer than we are in the west and the school gives them a chance to change their lives in so many ways.

“It also struck me that there is a really varied group of people who get involved.  Different people find the charity in all sorts of different ways. The Singing Kids tour is a great introduction and it always comes to our part of Yorkshire, so if you would like to find out more about Educate the Kids, follow them on Facebook and also keep tabs on the website and you’ll find details of their next visit.”  

I asked Greg to describe the charity in only a few words. That’s simple he says, “it’s the tagline – A hand up, not a handout. To see what I mean, come and see a show. Then, if you want to get involved, you’ll find that the cost of sponsoring a child or making a one-off donation, while not hugely significant to us, really can transform a child’s life. And why would anyone not want to do that?” 

Interview, Alastair Blair