TWO school pupils have raised money for deprived Muslim children by swimming lengths.

Subhan Faisal and Starr Boulding-Deakin, swam 100 and 75 lengths respectively at the Waterwings pool at Westholme school in Blackburn to raise money for Secret Santa’s Secret Sheikh project, that gives disadvantaged Muslim children presents this Eid.

Subhan heard about the Secret Sheikh project and wanted to help and challenge himself by swimming 100 lengths for the first time.

After his swim, the 13-year-old said: “I’m exhausted. I really enjoyed the swim and seeing the online sponsorship come in and the total increasing literally every other minute or so was very exciting and made me feel really pleased about what I was doing.”

Starr was equally pleased with her success, and originally had intended swimming 50 lengths. The nine-year-old said: “I just felt I could go on and wanted to push myself, but I was really tired at 75 and was glad to finish.

“We are all the same really, people are people, we shouldn’t be different from each other, so it was nice to help other children enjoy their special occasion of Eid.”

Both parents of the two swimmers said they were very proud of what their children had done.

Phil Boulding, co-founder and M.D of Secret Santa, said: “We are filled with pride at the willingness and kindness of our local community and here are two more shining examples.”