One By One: "The brutal murder of a little girl, aged 3, is why I'm running every day for a month"

But it was an incident 18 years ago which shaped her life and spurred her on to create a global charity.

"It was an incident that occured in 2006," Becky Murray told The Star, "I was in Sierra Leone and was a student nurse at the time and I met a little girl living on the streets.

"This little girl had no shoes. I had roughly 50p at the time and so I got her a pair of shoes. She asked me if I should meet her in my hotel... she had thought I had bought her the shoes so I could have sex with her.

"I made a promise in that moment that I would dedicate my life to this."

Becky, who still lives in Rotherham, founded the charity One By One in 2011 and their first project was a residential facility in Kenya, aiming to rehouse and give hope to children who would otherwise be in abject poverty.

The charity's latest initiative is a refuge centre in Uganda, which will be named after and dedicated to a three-year-old girl who was found dead in a Pakistan brick factory.

"We received a call in March 2021," she said. "A little girl we call Mercy had been brutally raped and had died as a result of the abuse. Her body had been left on the floor of a brick factory for everyone to walk past."

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New refuge centre for women and children planned in Uganda

Mercy had been a victim of exploitation and slavery and her death was heartbreaking for One By One, who had been working tirelessly to protect vulnerable women and children in the country.

"It was that moment I realised more needed to be done to help children like Mercy," Becky said.

The charity is now looking to open The Mercy Centre, which will provide a place of restoration and safety to children who have been trafficked.

Becky is one of many people across South Yorkshire taking part in the Running for Mercy fundraiser. She will be running 5km every day for the entire month of May.

She said: "As a busy mum with a charity to run I don't always have time for the gym, so the prospect of 31 days of jogging is a bit daunting, but hopefully by the end of it I will be fitter and have raised some vital funds in the process.

"I’m staggered by the generosity of everyone who has either sponsored or agreed to take part themselves. Whether you run a marathon or just walk a mile with your kids or grandkids, by taking part we can ensure that no child will ever have to suffer what little Mercy went through."

Anyone interested in taking part in Running for Mercy can visit www.onebyone.org, or if you'd like to sponsor Becky, you can donate to the Running for Mercy JustGiving page.