RAMS fans are this weekend making their longest ever trip for an away match – 4,000 miles to Kenya to help teach and support impoverished African children.
Supporters of the club are joining staff in travelling to the continent on a mission to teach local youngsters, help build a dormitory and show them some footballing skills.
The project has been organised by Derby County in the Community – the club's charitable arm – which has teamed up with volunteer travel group African Adventures.
Last year, a group made up of staff from the club spent 10 days helping improve a school in a deprived area of south-west Kenya. Now a bigger group is returning to continue the good work.
Faye Nixon, the club's marketing manager, went last time and said the experience was incredible.
She said: "It was completely eye-opening. The level of poverty people live in is hard to really grasp. In the city where we stayed it wasn't too bad. There was a hospital, but it was far from luxurious.
"But when we travelled just five minutes out of there, things quickly became far more primitive."
Last time, the volunteers helped work on a school for local youngsters and handed out gifts to them. But Faye said this year's trip – which departs tomorrow – was on a bigger scale.
She said: "We have 24 of us going this time. We advertised the trip and had a presentation evening at Pride Park. Many of the people going are fans who wanted to be part of the journey.
"People who wanted to come had to raise money for the trip and then African Adventures take care of travel and accommodation. A part of the money also went towards Derby County in the Community, and is helping to fill a £20,000 funding gap in our disability training programme."
She said that this year, a corporate client – Air Logistics – was generously supplying half a tonne of cargo, including gifts and treats for the youngsters.
As part of the trip, volunteers will be helping to build a chicken coop, complete with chickens, to provide a sustainable food source for the people of Nakuru, the village they are visiting.
They will also help finish work on the roof of a dormitory building at St Trizah school. The boarders are currently housed in a small room behind classrooms – it is cramped and students share beds without mattresses.
And volunteers will also be handing out 125 sanitary packs to young girls.
Faye said: "As a woman, it was really shocking to see girls dealing with menstrual cycles and having no sanitary aids to help. These will make a real difference to their lives.
"We will also be playing football with the children at the school, setting up sporting lessons for them to show their teachers a different way of educating.
"Last time I went I scored my first ever goal, so we all learnt something, really."
