LEAH's Marathon Place

We are delighted to have secured our first London Marathon place!  Andrew Daniels is running on our behalf and he says,

“LEAH can change lives through language. Imagine living in a community where your children can speak English fluently and you are struggling to make yourself understood, where you don’t dare attend a Parents' Meeting in case you can’t understand the teacher, where you struggle to make a GP appointment or buy an Oyster card.  Now consider having a tutor coming into your home to work just with you, to focus on your particular language needs.  From here you stand a chance of progressing to college to build on those skills and even into work.  You are much more confident and ready to fully integrate into society.

This really resonated with me, particularly as I had an authentic connection with LEAH’s work.  My grandmother retained a family name, De Courcey, her maternal Grandmother’s surname. The De Courcey story is one that has similarities to many of the stories of those that LEAH assists.  The family were Huguenots, French Protestants persecuted and exiled from Catholic France.  They eventually found a home and welcome in London.

I would like to think that in their time of need, someone showed them kindness, helped them learn English and through that support enabled them to integrate more easily into their adopted country.

And that’s what LEAH does and has been doing quietly but really effectively for over 30 years. I want to connect personally with this good work and enable LEAH to keep doing it.  It will be the Angel sitting on my shoulder during the testing moments of the fundraising challenge, the arduous 16-week training plan, the race itself and most of all the last mile where I know I’ll need to draw on every possible source of physical and mental strength to see me through.”

You can find out more about where the funds will go and donate here.

Thank you!

Jenny Irish, Director

24/02/20