I am Charlie Thomas, an Apprentice Firefighter with Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service. In March 2023, I will be part of a team of 11 Firefighter and Community Safety Apprentices who will be travelling to Nepal to build much-needed classrooms at an early years centre in a remote Nepalese village. In order to do this, we collectively need to raise £30,000. As firefighters in Cheshire we are helping people in our local communities every day, but it is important to help those communities less fortunate than us in any way we can.

The build will be in partnership with the charity 'Classrooms in the Clouds' (CiTC). It will be built to an earthquake resistant standard and will provide gender specific toilets as well as specialist early years learning resources.

Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service has worked with CiTC since 2014 and have already supported the building of five schools in Nepal. The project supports good quality, new classrooms, sponsoring teachers, supporting teacher training and encouraging employment of female teachers to support children's education and gender equality in the remote villages of Nepal.

Nepal is a very poor country with a dysfunctional infrastructure, significant health issues and poor rates of literacy (circa 65-70% men, 40% women). Many children are required to work on family land or earn money to support their family. If children do attend school, they will often have to walk long distances.

The challenge set for us apprentices is focused on children's education, which will be changed for generations if we can raise this money and fulfil the task.

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