WHEN Mike Welsh saw the school in Kenya his primary is twinned with was due to be demolished, he knew he had to do something.

So the Goddard Park Primary head set up a meeting with government officials before flying out there.

The Kenyan Rural Roads Authority had plans in place to build a relief road through the slum area that would go directly through the site of the school.

But after Mr Welsh’s intervention, they agreed to re-route it.

The long-serving head made a presentation that outlined the significance of the work the school does. He was assisted by pupils who helped by collecting stones to mark out the new route of the road that they proposed.

“This is one of the toughest areas in the world, the kids look forward to be able to learn and this is something I couldn’t let be taken away from them,” he explained.

Desai Memorial School has been twinned with the Park North primary for over 20 years.

Mr Welsh said: “When you have spent this amount of time and put so much work into helping it really does have an effect on you. It is part of my life to help this school.I was prepared to fight for this not to happen, there was just no way I could allow hundreds of kids to be left without a place like this and thankfully we were able to come to a compromise.”

But even though, the Nairobi County Authority, and KERRA agreed to move the road 10 metres to the north to miss the main school building, it resulted in the building’s only block of toilets being knocked down.The school now needs new lavatories built by January 2019 to allow it to reopen.

The Rotary Club of Swindon Old Town is trying to raise £1,000 for them to be constructed.

Children from both schools communicate with each other via Skype and they have built up a relationship where they learn from one another.

This is also something that Mr Welsh sees as beneficial to his pupils as they each play a key role in each other’s lives.

To donate visit: http://www.desaimemorialschool.co.uk/