Patrick March-a-thon for Aquinoe

The Half March-a-thon

This involves running four half marathons (13.1m/21.1km) in March 2021. Patrick, son of Aquinoe chair Jean, will be taking on this challenge, running one every weekend in that month to try to raise awareness and funds for the Aquinoe Learning Centre, an inclusive school in Kitale, Kenya.

"I really want to stretch myself to assist the school, and this will certainly do that," said Patrick, who is 42 and lives in Reading. "Aquinoe offers so much hope as well as education to people in desperate need of assistance. 

"A month of pain will be worth it if I can help out, even in just a small way."

Aquinoe – a school for up to 200 pupils in ‘normal’ times, some with special needs and many from very poor families or orphans – was closed at the outbreak of COVID-19 and is still closed for the majority of pupils.  Some of the pupils from Grades Four and Eight taking national exams are currently in school under rigorous COVID restrictions. School is unlikely to reopen fully until January 2021 at the earliest. 

According to Ukur Yatani, cabinet secretary of National Treasury and Planning in Kenya, the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to cause one of the greatest major economic shocks and underperformance of the country since independence.

In the first half of 2020, Kenya’s economy, already badly hit by the pandemic, was undermined by the worst attacks in the country for 70 years of huge swarms of locusts, which struck a large part of East Africa destroying crops and livelihoods.  This situation calmed down from June but at the beginning of November the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations reported: “Egg-laying and hatching are in progress, and hoppers are forming bands. As a result, a new generation of immature swarms will form in early December that are expected to move south and threaten southeast Ethiopia, southern Somalia, and northeast Kenya.” 

No salary has been paid to teachers in schools such as Aquinoe and the charity has already stepped in four times to secure wages until the end of December as well as helping families of those children who would normally be sponsored during term time.

Chair of Aquinoe, Jean, said, “I’m really proud of Patrick for planning this fundraising run for the school. He loves running, yes, but four half marathons in four weeks? All I can do is gasp in admiration and thank him for this wonderful idea.”

Patrick ran the Reading Half Marathon in 2019 and has run the Great Newham Run (10km) in 2016 and 17 as well as the Great South Run (10 miles) in 2005 and 06. So running four half marathons in a row will be a real challenge, especially considering he always used to be hobbling around for a few days after running anything more than six or seven miles. However, since March, Patrick has been training at weekends in an attempt to build up to this.

Any support would be hugely appreciated.