Lornah Kiplagat: runner with a heart
The KLM’s charity program AirCares would like to draw your attention to the Lornah Kiplagat Foundation. Lornah Kiplagat proves that it is possible to integrate professional sports with social awareness. The Dutch athlete with Kenyan roots, who won the four world titles and holds various world records, is the founder of a running camp.
Training Centre
The High Altitude Training Centre (HATC) in Iten, a Kenya village situated 2,400 metres above sea level in the Rift Valley, gives young talented Kenyan female runners the opportunity to leave poverty behind and build a career in professional sports.
But the involvement did not stop at the gate of the HATC. Lornah Kiplagat will impetus to her socially oriented activities and seek out new missions for non-athletes. The goal is to build a secondary school in 2010 totalling 250 girls, who will get education during four years. To succeed Lornah Kiplagat founded the Lornah Kiplagat Foundation.
Project
Unlike the western world, participation in education is not a given in Kenya. The large setup of most families means that parents often cannot afford to send all of their children to school. As a result, usually only the boys are sent to school and the girls lose out. A missed opportunity according to Lornah Kiplagat. ,,I feel that the immense problems in Kenya can only be tackled through education. Education is the key to the solution. And in this respect, the participation of girls is essential. The more girls study, the more independent they become.’’ The girls, who did not pay anything, will be fully boarded. They will be teached in class rooms, eat in a dining room and sleep in a bed room with toilet and a shower with hot water. Sports facilities will not be absent. To go in for sports will be stimulated.
AIDS
Informing about aids, still a subject of taboo in Kenya, naturally falls within the scope of education. At present, there are forty million people infected with HIV worldwide. One of the countries where the problem is greatest is Kenya, where over two million have developed the disease. There the victims are mainly girls and women. Currently some eight hundred people die of aids every day. This means that by 2010 there will be some four million orphans in Kenya.
Your Support
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On behalf of the girls of the Lornah Kiplagat Foundation, thank you for your support!