A Scottish football academy is helping build a school in Thailand in memory of murdered student Reamonn Gormley.
Blantyre Soccer Academy raises funds for the Good Child Foundation, the charity the 19-year-old volunteered for during his gap year before his stabbing in 2011.
The proceeds from the academy's Reamonn Gormley Memorial Soccer Festival will this year fund an extension to a school in the Chanthaburi province which offers placements for children with Down's syndrome.
Glasgow University student Reamonn was knifed three times when he refused to hand over his mobile phone and wallet. His killers, who were on bail at the time, were jailed for more than 27 years.
The school extension built in his memory will provide art classes.
Academy chairman Jimmy Whelan said: "It is anticipated that the art room will be up and running early in the new year. At the moment, school has no art room, so this will bring joy to many kids.
"Blantyre Soccer Academy's involvement with the Foundation came after the tragic death of Reamonn Gormley. We decided the community should give something back to the charity which was so close to Reamonn's heart."
Local MSP James Kelly said: "In my time representing Blantyre it has become clear that Blantyre Soccer Academy are making a real positive difference in communities, but I did not anticipate they would be helping build schools in South-East Asia as well as well-drilled football teams in South Lanarkshire.
"The death of Reamonn Gormley was a senseless tragedy which shocked people in Blantyre and across Scotland. What we have seen since in Blantyre is a real sense of community.
"He was clearly a special young man and his legacy sees thousands of children active in Scotland and schools being built in Thailand. That is something his family can be immensely proud of."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article