Boots2Africa is encouraging grassroots clubs to hold football boot donation events at their end-of-season awards days.

Boots2Africa is a small community interest company established in 2016 with the aim of collecting and delivering one million pairs of preloved donated football boots and astros to children and young adults across Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030.

They held collections at Portman Road ahead of the Blackburn and Newcastle games and last month made an education tourism trip with Colchester United's Football in the Community Team and African Adventures to Nakuru in Kenya.

Working daily at The Walk Centre, a primary and junior years school entirely funded by charitable donations, in a week they decorated a section of their recently-constructed new classroom block and spent hours teaching and engaging with the children, the majority of whom live in the city's London slum, which is adjacent to the school. They also played lots of football, including assisting in the delivery of the children's first ever structured coaching session.

In the coming months they will be arranging shipments of more donated kit to Kenya, Ghana and Malawi, having now collected more than 1,100 boots in the eight months since they began operating via collections at more than 30 grassroots clubs and eight schools.

Iain Finch, co-founder of Boots2Africa, said: "Our recent trip to Nakuru highlighted just how vital a good pair of shoes is in preventing disease and infection entering the bloodstream through the feet in the slums across Africa.

“That the children can wear Boots2Africa to play better football is a bonus and in the longer term will hopefully enhance the continent's player stock to the global game we love. Take a look at our the video and daily diaries on our Boots2Africa Facebook page and our YouTube video channel.

“We appreciate we can't fix poverty across a continent with a nearly a quarter of the world's population, but with 350,000 children of school age across Essex and Suffolk and 40,000 of them playing football in leagues every weekend with community empowerment at grassroots level we can do our best to ensure millions of children don't needlessly suffer without shoes when as a region we've so much to give.”

For details on how to set up a collection event or for more information, write to Boots2Africa via info@boots2Africa.co.uk if you'd like to get involved in collections or donations, their website can be found here, while they can be followed on Twitter here: @Boots2Africa.

Photos: Contributed

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