A charity will this month launch a fundraising drive to help impoverished children in Africa get an education.

The Bermuda Overseas Mission has organised a month-long virtual tag February designed to support families in the Mulanje district of Malawi.

David Thompson, the president of Bom, said: “If we can help educate the children of Malawi we teach them to enrich their own lives and in turn they can make a long term difference to the future of their village, their district, and even their country.

“Some of the students who have gone through our programme have enlisted for further education and are pursuing careers in medicine and engineering.

“This would never have been possible without giving them an opportunity to finish their primary education.”

Bom, a youth mentorship charity, takes young Bermudian to other countries to help build homes and support people most in need.

A spokeswoman for the charity said that the charity had turned its attention to Malawi in 2015 and sent groups to Mulanje district in 2017 and 2019.

The spokeswoman added: “During the visit in 2017 while working in the village of Magreta, the group discovered that girls as young 12 and 13 were being married off because families could not afford to educate them.

“Boys, meanwhile, had stopped going to school to work as subsistence farmers or on the tea plantations in the district.”

The spokeswoman said Malawi was “one of the poorest on the continent and the cost of going to high school - often as little as $15 per term - means the most disadvantaged children get only a basic education”.

The charity has raised funds to give scholarships to send 78 children in Magreta and nearby villages to high school.

Bom has also paid for their school uniforms, backpacks, books and other supplies.

Mr Thompson said: “With the Covid-19 pandemic, it was not possible to continue our student trips in 2020 and we are discussing our plans for 2021.

“However in the meantime we can still help the people of Malawi by supporting the education of their children.”

For more information or to donate, contact Mr Thompson at david@bom.bm