Silvia Ballabio, eight and from Oxford, has finished a walking
challenge which has seen her cover 1250km – the distance from her
home to her grandparents’ house in Italy – in five months, all to
raise money to help people experiencing homelessness.
In March, Silvia decided to take on this mammoth challenge
because she couldn’t go and visit her grandparents in Italy, due
to the pandemic, so thought she could pretend to walk there
instead, and do something to support national homelessness
charity Crisis in the process.
Alongside her parents, Silvia has been walking an average of 5km
a day since March to reach her goal, and even managed 17km in one
walk in recent weeks.
Silvia chose to support Crisis after noticing people living on
the streets in her local area and has been asking for people to
sponsor her to do the walk. As she completed the walk, she’d
raised a whopping £500.
Crisis provides services and support to thousands of people
experiencing homelessness across Great Britain. With 11 Skylight
centres from England, Scotland and Wales, including one in
Oxford, Crisis works with people to help them rebuild their lives
and help put them on a path out of homelessness for good.
Silvia said: “I missed my grandparents so
decided that I would try to walk the distance between my house
and theirs. I wanted to raise money for Crisis because I wanted
to help people who are homeless, especially because of
coronavirus. I would like people who are homeless to have a safe
place to stay. I’m excited to finish my challenge. I hope the
money I raised for Crisis will help people who are homeless to
sleep in a warm bed with food to eat. I'm happy I could support
Crisis.”
Emma Darlington, Fundraising Manager for Crisis in
Oxford, said: “We’re incredibly proud of Silvia’s walk,
what an amazing achievement for someone so young. We’re honoured
that Silvia chose to support Crisis. The brilliant amount that
she has raised will help us to continue our work to help people
experiencing homelessness across the country leave homelessness
behind for good, so please do support her if you can!”
Visit Silvia’s JustGiving page to donate: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/silvia-bp?fbclid=IwAR1J_eIjE5E6Bn40OQveHqnQCgS-CecRFen99T42DGoJTxy6DyVwX8Rn_2A
