On Sunday 8 September I am taking part in my first ever half marathon - scary stuff! It was a New Year's resolution that I am determined to keep and I have decided to offset the pain of training by raising money for a brilliant charity, Friends of Alalay (Santa Cruz) which was founded by an inspirational friend of mine, Annie Syrett.

Friends of Alalay is a UK registered charity which directly supports the Alalay organisation in it's work with street children in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. In 2006 Annie spent nearly 6 months working with Alalay as part of her degree course and was determined to take action to help them upon her return to the UK. All of the money raised for Friends of Alalay goes directly to help the children, there are no admin costs involved. Every penny that you give will go directly to Bolivia to find, accommodate, feed, care for, love and educate the street children in the care of Alalay.

Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in South America and an estimated several hundred thousand children live at high risk,working and sleeping on the streets. Alalay's mission is to help Bolivian street kids to help themselves and one of the main ways of doing this is through supporting educational and/or self-sustaining projects.

So, what might your donations be put towards?...

£10 could buy 18 quail birds to replace stock on the 3,000 strong quail farm. The children eat the eggs and surplus are sold in the local market to generate income for the project.

£30 could fund a child's vocational training for a month. Over the past few years Alalay have supported 14 children through courses in cookery, car mechanics, accounting, nursing and beauty, with many children going on to study at university or work. Your money could help other children to have this opportunity.

For further information about this brilliant charity and the help that they give to street children in Bolivia please visit  http://alalay.co.uk/

There is a lot of fundraising to be done, Annie's advice to me was to "GET RUNNING!!" so that's what I intend to do...

Thank you!

Laura x

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now, every little helps!