Sanday School pupils spent the last two months swimming to Ukraine, and along the way raised almost £600 for relief aid.
No, they didn’t stumble upon a wormhole at the community pool. But together with their teachers, they swam enough laps to equal the approximate distance between Ukraine and Sanday.
Since they kicked off in March, the P1-S4 students and staff swam a total of 2,200 miles in the local pool. Along the way, the 60-pupil school raised £590 for the DEC Ukraine Appeal.
Sanday School Ukraine swim: An unconventional journey
Sanday students might be the only group to “swim” across Europe to Ukraine, figuratively or literally.
They charted themselves a direct route to the Ukrainian capital, covering the whole of the UK before crossing the Channel into France and passing through Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and finally into Kyiv.
By mid-March, the pupils calculated that they had made it as far as Edinburgh. But with help from staff members and extra hours in the pool, they completed the rest of the journey this week.
Taken in reverse, the Sanday students’ path is similar to how refugees might reach the UK if they were fleeing overland.
The UN recently estimated that over 6.2 million refugees have fled Ukraine for other countries. The majority, over 3 million, landed in Poland and hundreds of thousands more have fled to Romania, Hungary and even into Russia.
The UK Government has issued 102,300 visas to refugees as of May 11, and 46,100 have arrived as of May 9.
‘A hard task’ but worth it
Sanday School pupils were proud of their achievement when they finally logged the last length of the pool.
One pupil said: “The swim challenge is a hard task to complete but doing it for Ukraine is really driving us all to swim more lengths as it will benefit so many people.
The pupils said that they tried to swim as many lengths as possible each week.
Not the only ones pitching in
The Sanday school swim joined a long list of efforts by schoolchildren who have given their time and money to try and help Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
Students at Daliburgh School, on South Uist, raised £1,300. They also wrote letters to Boris Johnson, asking the government to make it easier for refugees to safely enter the UK.
Their campaign even earned the backing of their local MP, Angus McNeil.
Students at Aberdeen’s Bucksburn Academy collected donations to ship to Ukraine, and young musicians at Albyn School performed a rousing rendition of the Ukrainian national anthem.
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