Peter Loader in Ethiopia
Mr Loader, Head of Geology, was on holiday visiting his daughter, Helena in Ethiopia, when he found a young man teaching a group of 50 to 60 children under the shade of a tree. All Ethiopian schools are fee paying and pupils have to be able to speak English before they can enrol. These children were from extremely poor families and many were victims of AIDS or had parents suffering from AIDS.
Mr Loader felt so moved by their plight that he set about raising funds to provide a temporary school for them to learn in. The young man teaching these children was called Belay Bale and had decided to teach these children himself, even though he was not qualified, so that they would have a better life.
Mr Loader managed to persuade many of the parents and students at St Bede’s to
donate funds to rent a small, temporary building and enabled Belay to start teacher training. After a return to see if all was well in their temporary set up, he realised that something more permanent would be needed and set up the project called ‘The School Under The Tree’.
In order to realise these dreams sixth-former Alfred Adegbite, who is among hopefuls for the British 
2012 Olympic rowing team, led a 24-hour sponsored rowing event involving pupils and staff. This started a fund raising marathon to raise the £31,000 required to complete the project.