Help Pilgrims Change Kids Lives

Silves Rotary Club is raising funds for a sensory room and garden.

The picture above shows our oldest walker David and his mascot presented by the children of Algoz School. His teammates, who will also walk the Camino, joined him for the photograph.

Ten members from Silves Rotary Club with a combined age of over 850 years decided to walk the Camino Portugues from Valença to Santiago de Compostela. Starting on 24 September 2022, the pilgrims will walk some 120 km over six days to provide children with learning difficulties with a calm and ideal place to learn.

Each team member will be supported by a class of pupils at the Agrupamento Escolas de Silves Sul and carry a mascot presented so the pilgrims can share their experience daily with the school children. Therefore, you could say there will be 24 pilgrims.

Looking at them, you would not bet on these pilgrims making it. A couple have had recent hip replacements, one a heart surgery, another an eighty-year-old has dodgy knee. Others have suffered a sprinkling of other injuries that one picks up in your seventies – yes, the average age of the pilgrims will be over seventy. They are the walking wounded.

Why go through the challenge? You may well ask. The answer is to raise money for this fantastic cause and to inspire you to donate so we can resource a much-needed sensory room and garden for Autistic and Down syndrome children in Agrupamento Escolas de Silves Sul. The school needs a sensory room and garden, a calm, safe haven to enable them to benefit fully from their time in school. Furthermore, the dedicated teachers at the school need the tools and resources to provide the children with the necessary skills to live independently in the future.

Silves Rotary Club Pilgrims ask your help to raise 20000 Euros; 100% of your donations will turn that old classroom and scrubby garden into a harmonious learning space with all the necessary resources. Any contribution is welcome.

We are inspired by John Bunyan's famous hymn, which goes

He who would valiant be

Against all disaster.

Let him in constancy

Follow the master.

There's no discouragement,

Shall make him once relent

His first avowed intent

To be a pilgrim.

Be inspired too! We appreciate your help.