We, the PRIDE team (Becki Park, Dave Scott, Ewa Tokarski, Sarah Easey, Dan Billingham and Luke Stone) are working with an organisation called Building Bridges to support an individual called Ali, we will be holding different fundraising activities over the coming weeks. On 12th June we will be climbing Snowden.

Ali and his family left Syria in 2017 to come to the UK for a better, safer life. Ali and his wife have two young children, so as you can imagine, travelling all that way was no easy task.

Ali has been living in Wiltshire for just over 12 months and in that time he has learnt fluent English and is setting up his own food distribution business. Ali’s vision is to buy Syrian food produce and create dishes for distribution in the Wiltshire area.

Ali is fantastically motivated and has already sourced himself a small warehouse (completely free of charge for the first 12 months whilst he finds his feet), has 60+ local families lined up who want to be customers and has found a London supplier of Syrian food produce (London is the closest).

That’s where we come in. Ali needs a van to pick up the produce from London. Building Bridges have helped him apply for numerous grants with no luck, so we want to raise that money for him.

Ali doesn’t have the money to buy the vehicle himself and it is the one thing standing in his way of getting his business started and providing for his family the way he wants to.

We have met Ali and seen how much this means to him, the thought that him wanting to make a better life for himself and his family is restricted by money, is truly heart-breaking.

Please support us with any donations you can make, both Ali and us would really appreciate it.