Books and laptops donated by Long Eaton school flown to Ghana thanks to East Midlands Airport and DHL Express
A primary school in Bunkpurugu, Ghana, has received a donation of books and laptops thanks to a joint initiative between East Midlands Airport and a Long Eaton based primary school.
In 2015, English Martyrs’ School in Long Eaton launched a ‘Building Hope’ fundraising appeal to provide the Lady of Hope school in Bunkpurugu, Ghana, with new facilities. The school’s buildings were some of the worst in the country. By 2018, £13,415.00 had been raised and construction of new buildings started that year.
The Lady of Hope school now has some of the most modern facilities in Ghana. English Martyrs’ support continues, and, last week, the school sent more than 200 books and eight brand new laptops to Ghana.
But a stumbling block was getting the shipment to Ghana. However, thanks to the school’s relationship with East Midlands Airport (English Martyrs’ is a recent recipient of eco-garden funding), contact was made with DHL Express who came to the rescue and collected the shipment from Long Eaton and flew it to Ghana.
Mrs Jo Pettifer (Assistant Head – English Martyrs’), said: “We couldn’t be more grateful to the airport and cargo partner DHL Express for their help with our shipment. This means so much to the children here who are passionate about supporting this cause. Our books are surplus to requirement due to changes to the curriculum and what better way to recycle them than to send them to our friends in Bunkpurugu.”
East Midlands Airport has established itself as the UK’s most important international centre for express freight, where high value goods are moved rapidly to meet the needs of customers and to stringent deadlines. These services are important for exporting companies and for international supply chains across a range of industrial sectors in the Midlands, particularly advanced manufacturers, medical and the aerospace sector.
The airport’s operation was critical to the movement of medical supplies and PPE during the pandemic and is often called upon to help with humanitarian relief efforts around the world.
Thanks to the “hub-and-spoke” model of the air cargo operators based at EMA, 186 of the world’s largest cities including ‘powerhouses’ such as New York, Singapore, Dubai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, Mumbai, Jakarta and Frankfurt (to name a few) and ‘second-tier’ cities such as Bogota, Tel Aviv, Cape Town, Seattle, Nairobi and Panama City can be reached from EMA with only one stop.
