A Tanzanian orphaned boy’s plans to support himself have inspired 200 schoolchildren to become mini entrepreneurs to raise money.

Year 9 pupils at Brighton College gathered this week to hear from the charity We See Hope, which empowers children orphaned and isolated by poverty in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

After listening to how the gift of goats, fertiliser and a bike transformed the fortunes of a boy called Kingsley who is the same age as they are, every child was handed £10 seed money by the school and challenged to think up a business plan which would multiply that amount by ten.

They have ten weeks to implement the plan and hand over the fruits of their labour to We See Hope.

In previous years, when the school challenged pupils to do the same, some glorious ideas emerged, including a tyre-customising business, a T-shirt printing operation and a wooden reindeer production line in time for Christmas.

Geography teacher Chris Webster, who oversees the Eastern Road school’s social entrepreneurship programme, said: “The children that We See Hope helps are not victims waiting for a handout.

“They are just like the children here at school, full of energy and ideas.

“With the charity’s support, they can get themselves out of poverty and realise their ambitious for themselves and their families.

“This is Brighton College children’s chance to help them on that journey. It is also a wonderful opportunity for our pupils to use their creativity and skills and realise that a good world-changing business idea can come to you at any age.”

We See Hope are currently working in 222 communities in five countries, reaching almost 65,000 vulnerable children across Southern and Eastern Africa.

Despite world poverty falling over the last 30 years, in African countries the percentage has barely fallen.

Still today over 40 per cent of people living in sub-Saharan Africa live in absolute poverty, according to the United Nations.