A heavily pregnant mother-of-two from Bourne End flew out to Lebanon this week to take part in a 5k run to help children with disabilities being excluded from schools in the country.

Sophia Peiris went to Beirut with friend and colleague Jamie Eyre, from Wendover, for the run on Monday (April 22) as part of a national awareness day to mark National Day for Students with Learning Difficulties.

Now in its sixth year, the day is organised by a charity in the country – Kids with Individual Learning difficulties (SKILD) – in conjunction with the British Council and the Ministry of Education.

Sophia, who is currently 30 weeks pregnant, joined father-of-two James and 180 other parents and teachers taking part as they raised money and awareness, encouraging church and community leaders in the country to be active on special needs issues.

She said: “This is an increasingly growing issue in Lebanon with many children unable to attend or excluded from school or gaining an education due to lack of resources, understanding or recognition.

“I decided to sign up for the SKILD 5k Fun Run because I want to show my solidarity with all of those children and youth – and their parents – who struggle because of a learning difference that simply hasn’t been recognised or understood.”

She added: “As a mother my hope for my own children in their education here in the UK is that they are supported in the right way to shine and succeed in reaching their individual potential.

“Too often, children who have a learning difficulty are not understood and so they struggle and fall behind.

“This is a problem of a national scale, both in Lebanon and here in the UK and this national day is about ensuring that every single child is given the right tools, support and educational approaches to reach their full potential.”

SKILD has also organised training workshops across Lebanon to help equip Sunday school teachers who are often tasked with hosting and caring for children with disabilities.

SKILD director Hiba Al Jamal said: “Our mission at SKILD is to reach out to those marginalised kids wherever they are.

“After the school system, the church is the second institution to host children, so reaching out to their leaders was our goal so that we continue the awareness to all our community stakeholders.”