THE founder of a charity that helps children will be stepping out to build a home.

Mark Thomas, who set up the Child’s Trust with wife Julie, will be joined by trustee Joe McIlvenney, both of whom are from Basingstoke, in a massive sponsored walk next month from the source of the Thames in the Cotswolds to the Thames Barrier in the city of London.

The journey is a total of 184 miles, and will take the pair around 12 days to complete.

The event is to raise part of the £55,000 needed to build a permanent home in India for a House For Help family.

This is a scheme that the charity runs whereby a family welcomes as many as eight orphans into their home to improve their lives.

Mark said: “The children get to live in a small family unit, when they would be out on the street. This way they get long-term fostering and parents for life. It helps to break the orphan cycle.

“So we are looking to raise the money to create a permanent home for between six and eight children.”

This will not be the first time that the pair have stepped out to build houses.

Two years ago, the pair, joined by others, walked the Pembrokeshire Coast, a journey of 186 miles in total.

Mark added: “We are going to be inviting people to join us again for certain parts of the journey, and we’ve already had people take an interest.

“It’s a huge commitment to do the whole journey, but if people want to join us, especially young people as part of our trip will be in the school holidays, they can.

“We’ve already got seven or eight people coming on different days. It’s been like a snowball, people keep rolling along and joining in.

“We’re both looking forward to going and are very excited to start.”

For more information, go to source2city.com.