Thanks for taking the time to visit my Justgiving page.

At around 7.30am on Sunday morning, 12th December, I reached Stella Point, the first summit on Mt Kilimanjaro along with the 16 others in the 'Big Dreams Trek' team. 12 of us then continued to Uhuru Peak at 5895m the highest point in Africa. This was the culmination of a week's trek around the mountain to gradually acclimatise to the high altitude. Unfortunately the weather during the week had been atrocious and indeed on summit night (we set off at 11.30 pm) we had endured blizzard conditions until dawn when miraculously the sky cleared and the sun came up to reveal the full beauty of the summit.

Our objective has been to to raise over £50,000 for Afrikids and thanks to the generosity of supporters so far we have now reached a total of over £60,000 with more pledged, which is fantastic.

Afrikids is an extraordinary, entrepreneurial charity that supports sustainable, commercially viable projects in rural northern Ghana, helping people there to change not only their lives, but also those of their families and communities. 

After climbing Mt Toubkal, the highest summit in the Atlas Mountains in North Africa in 2008 to raise money for Afrikids, I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to Bolgatanga in northern Ghana for a week in October last year to see some of the projects the charity is supporting. This gave me a real insight into the lives of people in the community who have to cope at a subsistence level with limited support from the state. The dedication of the local Afrikids team, who by UK standards have little themselves, was truly inspiring. 

Afrikids now operates a number of projects including a children's home, run by a remarkable lady, Mama Laadi; a medical centre which is now producing a profit to support other activities of the charity, and a  whole series of micro-finance projects, as well as out reach operations to help educate remote rural communities. I had no idea how micro-finance worked before seeing actual examples of the way that it can transform lives. Typically it involves providing a loan of £25 to £50 to enable someone who would be unable to borrow money commercially to set up a small business.

However, for me probably the most emotional experience was attending the school for Night Rabbits, an evening class run for children who are sleeping rough. The children who attended were aged from 8 to 15. They were all friendly and open, despite their desperately difficult lives. Most were working in a lorry park earning about 50p per day and sleeping under lorries at night. Walking back with them in the dark to the lorry park and having to leave them whilst we returned to our modest, but still luxurious by Bolga standards, accommodation was quite traumatic.

Why Afrikids as opposed to any number of other similar organisations? For me it is simply that I now know the young UK directors well and have been really impressed by their dedication and business like approach to running the charity. It is also Afrikids' objective to create a self sufficient local team in northern Ghana  who within a few years will be able to operate from profits made from ventures such as the medical centre and the lodge where I stayed. The charity has also won the prestigious Charity Times Award 2010 for Social Enterprise of the year.

Climbing Kilimanjaro has been a big dream for me, and more importantly, the money raised will enable a lot of young people to have big dreams too.   Many thanks in advance for your support - it means a lot to me personally.