Students walk to combat poverty

Six WA students are spending their school holidays walking 135km from Cape Leeuwin to Cape Naturaliste to help end global poverty.

The students from Dunsborough, Busselton and Perth started the walk on Tuesday.

They said they were moved by the struggles of the world’s poorest people.

“The whole idea of the inequality – where we have so much and they have so little – is just so wrong,” organiser Mia Krasenstein said.

The 16-year-old from Dunsborough has been a regular fundraiser for Caritas Australia but this is by far the biggest challenge she has taken on.

“At first we were just going to do it as a challenge but then I thought, ‘why walk over 100km for nothing’,” she said.

“There are people all over the world who are confronted with injustice every day. This is the least we can do.”

The Cape-to-Cape team are being supported by their parents, who have met them at camping grounds daily and supplied them with food, water and fresh clothes.

They will donate all funds raised to Caritas Australia, which delivers emergency responses and long-term development programs to some of the poorest communities in the world.

Caritas Australia chief executive Jack de Groot said to see young Australians take such an interest in the injustice of global poverty was humbling.

The walk is expected to finish on Monday.