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Marathon launched in Norwich for Africa charity

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Street Child, a charity working in West Africa founded by a Norwich Christian, is organising a marathon which starts in Norwich and ends more than 4,200 miles away in Sierra Leone.
 


Runners in Norfolk are being asked to sign up for the Sierra Leone marathon, which takes place in West Africa in October. The race is organised by Street Child, a charity founded by Norwich man Tom Dannatt, who attends St Thomas' Church in the city.

Over the past three years runners have raised more than £1m for the charity Street Child, which works with the poorest children in one of the poorest countries in the world.

This year the need is greater than ever as Sierra Leone begins recovering from the devastation of Ebola. And, for the first time, the Sierra Leone marathon is being launched in Norfolk.

One of the people already signed up is Norwich vicar the Rev Dave Lloyd. He is a trustee of Street Child and ran the half-marathon distance in Sierra Leone in 2012 (the first-ever Sierra Leone marathon) and, with his wife Anna, in 2013. In October he hopes to do it again.

More than 11,000 people have died of Ebola in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. Liberia was declared Ebola free in May, but the outbreak is not yet officially over in Sierra Leone or Guinea, which have to record six weeks without a case before the country can be declared free of the disease. However, the organisers of the Street Child Sierra Leone marathon expect the country to be ebola-free by October and want to be in a position to hold the fund-raising marathon as soon as it is safe to do so. All the money raised will go to support Ebola orphans.

Click here to read the full story on the EDP website

Click here to read more about the marathon


www.street-child.co.uk


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