DILTON Marsh Primary School has donated several pairs of second-hand shoes to pupils at a school in Tanzania, helping them walk to and from their homes.

The Choba Primary School was set up by Holt’s Valerie McGivern in 2008 and currently has 400 students, some of whom have to travel around four miles every day.

The 54-year-old said: “Before Choba Primary School was built the issue was that children had to walk about four miles up a very steep hill to get to a school meaning they had to wait until they were nine or ten years old before they could go.

“Around a third of our students come from the village but some from outside in other villages still have to travel about four miles to get here, although we do have a school bus for most of them.

“The pupils at Dilton Marsh were brilliant when I spoke with them, I tried to make it interactive rather than a speech so I showed them lots of photos and they were really good and very interested.”

Headteacher at Dilton Marsh Judith Finney said: “Linda Conley used to be a governor at our school before she passed away and now her husband Dan helps Valerie with her school so we decided to donate these shoes.

“Valerie was coming over and we thought it was the ideal opportunity for her to come in and speak with the children who were really good and asked her lots of questions.”

Ms McGivern first visited the east African country as a tourist in 2003 and returned several times as a volunteer before founding a nursery in 2008 and primary school the following year.

Despite its continuing growth and success, the school is in constant need of funding and faces closure if more money isn’t found.

“At the moment it costs about £4,000 a month to run the school and it’s really hard to get fundraising as investors usually like to see something when they invest money but the majority of that money goes on salaries,” said Ms McGivern.

“I can keep the school running until the end of the year but then after that I need to find more money otherwise it will have to close which would be a nightmare.”

To make a donation, email valerie@childrenofchoba.org.uk