Rodney Stevens
When Matt Trounce was running a marathon last year and saw a fellow competitor wearing a girl’s school dress, curiosity got the better of him and he was determined to find out more.
This month the Yamba resident will tackle the gruelling 42km Bottlebutt Bash Trail Run, through the magical Burrawan State Forest west of Port Macquarie, while wearing a girl’s school dress to raise money for the charity ‘One Girl’.
“I have been a runner since I was a teenager, although I only got into marathons when I was a bit older,” he said.
“I did a 100km race in the Blue Mountains called UTA and I saw a guy in a girl’s school dress there and said, ‘what are you doing’.
“He said I am raising funds for this charity called ‘One Girl’ so that’s how I found out about the charity.
“Not only was it something that caught people’s attention, but it pointed to the thing the charity was raising money for.”
The Bottlebutt Bash Trail Run is named after the more than 200-year-old Red Bloodwood tree in the Burrawan State Forest which is unique in its shape – its large flared ‘butt’ having a massive girth of more than 16 metres just above its base.
Melbourne based charity One Girl breaks down the barriers African girls have accessing education by running girl-led programs in Sierra Leone and Uganda.
To ensure his confidence in donating to One Girl, Mr Trounce said he researched the charity before committing to raise essential funds to help educate African girls.
“One Girl works mainly in Sierra Leone targeting that area because there is a really low percentage of girls that ever make it through high school, in that kind of culture they are more likely to be married off by the time they are 18 than finish their education,” he said.
According to One Girl, only 16 per-cent of girls from Sierra Leone ever complete high school, but if a girl is educated, her income will increase by 10 to 25 per-cent for every year she stays in school.
“Teachers are employed specifically to work with the girls, they make sure they have school supplies, stationery and textbooks they need; they give them solar lamps so they can study at home at night without electricity, they make sure they have some education and sanitary pads to cope with their monthly period and attend school, they provide health and sex education and leadership training,” Matt said.
“It all sounded really good to me, and it was something I was happy to support.”
In what will be his 21stth marathon, Matt said looked around for local races to enter to raise money for One Girl and found the Bottlebutt Bash Trail Run on April 23.
A $25 donation to One Girl could provide a year’s supply of sanitary pads, a $50 donation could provide five pairs of school shoes for One Girl scholars, $100 could provide one year’s business training for a woman and $300 could fund access to education for a girl for one year.
So far One Girl has supported 541 girls to attend school, trained 25 women as One Girl focal teachers and provided 339,990 sanitary pads to One Girl scholars.
Determined to do his best and raise as much as he can for One Girl, Matt said he has been working on a niggling knee problem which he is confident won’t hinder his efforts.
“In the Blue Mountains there is a lot of mountain climbing and in some places ladders and really steep climbing up and down, this one compared to that is pretty flat, so I’m thinking if I take my time I shouldn’t have too many issues,” he said.
To donate to Matt’s marathon One Girl effort, visit the website www.onegirl.org.au and search for Matt Trounce or scan the QR code with your mobile phone to be taken to the donation page.