7th December 2007 - Christmas card strengthens African link

Yorkshire Euro-MP Linda McAvan visited  The City School in Sheffield today to share with students Christmas cards based on a design from three schools in the Southern African country of Lesotho.

Over the last few years, The City School has developed a remarkable link with the Malealea Development Trust, which supports development in the town in Lesotho. This year Ms McAvan - whose Christmas cards are often deigned by local school children - asked whether schools in Malealea would be interested in supplying a design. Dozens of students responded, with one design being used as the image on the card, and three others being incorporated.

Through the production of the Christmas card, a donation has been made to the Malealea Development Trust.

Today Ms McAvan showed the finished cards to The City School students for the first time, and give some of the cards to the students for their own use this Christmas. The students who met the MEP visited Malealea last year.

Linda McAvan, who sits on the International Development Committee in the European Parliament says;

"I am really pleased that the schools in Lesotho were able to design my Christmas card this year, and in so doing to build another link between our local communities. It's cliché to say that we live in a small world today, but in some respects we do. As we can see on the news every night, we cannot remove ourselves from the consequences of events thousands of miles away. But if we are going to live in a genuinely global community, we need to build links and understanding between people who in the past could never even have dreamed of meeting each other. That is why the work of Ken Dunn and the Malealea link at the City School is so inspirational."

Ken Dunn, Assistant Head Teacher at The City School said;

"We were really pleased to be able to help Linda with her Christmas card this year. Students both in our community and Malealea treasure the link that we have, and the card gave us another chance to explore our different cultures and experiences."