Sir,

Thank you to everyone who stopped and put money in our Monmouth Aid collecting tins on Friday.

The collection raised £260 towards building a school in one of the poorest areas of Ethiopia.

In Monmouth we take our education system for granted; we are lucky to live in a safe, friendly town and we have excellent, high-achieving schools.

In our adopted community in Kemba, Ethiopia, they are so grateful to us for providing the basics of life.

We have provided a well to give them clean drinking water; a primary school and now, we are funding a secondary school - education is the only way out of abject poverty.

We would also like to publicly thank Esme Doyle, from Redbrook, who is running the London Marathon on Sunday for Monmouth Aid.

She has been training hard and raising much needed funds for our school project.

If you would like to sponsor Esme, please go to http://www.justgiving.com/Esme-Doyle">www.justgiving.com/Esme-Doyle, or to http://www.monmouthaid.co.uk">www.monmouthaid.co.uk. Good luck Esme and thank you on behalf of our grateful friends in Ethiopia.

Tanya Walters

(Monmouth)