By Razcal
December 17 2003

A friend of mine teaches in what is euphemistically known as a tough school somewhere in Leicester. They have encouraged a whole year group to raise enough money to buy a flock of sheep for an Ethiopian village. They could send a lot of food which will be nice to eat while it lasts but leaves nothing permanent in place. By sending the flock of sheep the villagers can use the wool to make products which can be sold for cash. The animals can breed and so provide a continuous supply of milk and meat. They are not the same sort of sheep as we get over here. These are tough creatures adapted to life in infertile Ethiopian scrubland. The children have learnt about geography. They could point to Ethiopia on a map of the world. They have learnt about economics and about religious education in a wide sense, i.e. about caring about other people.

When they first looked at the possibility of helping the teacher was hoping to persuade the students to do a little fundraising to buy a few education packs which contain paper, pens etc for the village school. But the pupils thought that a) this was punishment not help and b) that they should go for the more expensive option of a whole flock of sheep.

When I heard about this I had just been reading about some of the world cup memorabilia going for silly amounts of money on internet auction sites. I had a world cup programme from the England South Africa game. It was given to me as a consolation by a friend who knew my boss had prevented me from taking up the opportunity to go the world cup. I said that I would ask the club to get the programme signed by the magnificent 7 and see if we could get something for it to put towards the sheep.

When I got down to the club I bumped straight into office boy. “Hello Raz” he beamed “I hope you don’t want anything signing.” Gulp I went. Apparently the club and players had just taken the decision to turn down such requests because they were fed up with people asking for this and that to be signed supposedly for charity only for the stuff to appear on e-bay and sold for private gain. I could understand that but it was frustrating. “Try Sam” was Office boy’s suggestion. So I e-mailed Sam Rossiter-Steed. He replied by return explaining the situation but finishing by saying we still want to help you get your flock of sheep. He offered to provide a match programme from the Bath game with the 7 signatures, a certificate of authenticity and a letter giving the club’s blessing to it being sold. He then took a deep interest in the project and what we were doing to raise the money in a school where half the kids have free school meals. He then offered to provide a tigers goody bag for each child involved as a reward for their commitment. Each goody bag contains a mini rugby stress ball, a mobile phone holder with tigers logo, a copy of the current year book a poster of the squad and other bits and pieces. There are 130 students in this year group so Sam provided 130 goody bags. I cannot tell you how touched the teachers involved with this project were by this gesture.

So why tell you all this? First if anyone wants the autographed programme make a bid on here. Just start a thread and bid on it. I have refused to put it on e-bay after all the ticket touting. Secondly does this sound like an uncaring out of touch organization or does this sound like the actions of a club we are proud to support? And thirdly do you know somebody who has absolutely everything and so you do not know what to get them for Christmas or birthdays? Buy them a flock of sheep or one of the cheaper options. Try www.worldvision.org.uk or www.sendacow.org.uk

Happy Christmas to all our readers.