13-year-old’s ‘February Freeze’ for school children in Kenya

A teenager from rural Bristol is battling freezing winter temperatures and early wake-up calls to bring clean water to schools in rural Kenya.

Freya Hyslop, 13, a year 9 pupil at Kingswood School in Bath and junior ambassador of the charity African Promise, is over halfway through a month-long challenge to undertake a daily cold-water plunge in the garden of her family home.

Freya is no stranger to ambitious challenges having completed a week-long walk-to-school challenge two years ago, walking the 10km to school and back each day for a week and raising more than £5,000 for African Promise.

It was this experience that inspired her latest ‘February Freeze’ fundraising challenge, explains Freya.

“During the walking challenge, I was lucky; I had many people supporting me, as well as good snacks to get me through. However, what struck me the most was that without drinking water, I would have found a 20k daily walk almost impossible. This is the reality many children around the world face, and has inspired my new water-themed challenge”

Freya has so far raised nearly £1,500 from family, friends and her school community – already triple her initial target of £500 – which the charity is using to increase water storage capacity and rainwater harvesting potential across its partner schools in Kenya for the benefit of more than 3,000 children.

In addition to battling ice-cold and even frozen water, Freya has also had to contend with early starts to the day, completing her plunges in the early mornings before school. Freya has been joined by mum, Sarah, and, for the second half of the challenge, by dad, Matt, whose employer will add a donation to the fundraising pot if he too completes a plunge every day until the end of this month.

You can show your support for Freya’s incredible efforts and help her reach her new fundraising target of £3,000 by making a donation to her fundraising page at justgiving.com/page/sarah-hyslop-africanpromise or directly to the charity at africanpromise.org.uk