I am a trustee for NICHE International, a small medical charity (Reg. No. 1174977) working in international newborn care (www.nicheinternational.org.uk). 

The number of babies dying in the first 28 days of life per 1,000 live births (neonatal mortality rate) in the UK is 3/1,000.  In West Africa it is 26/1,000.  The UN's sustainable development goal is for this number to be "at least as low as 12/1,000" worldwide by 2030. 

We fundraise to send instructors to resource poor areas of the world to both facilitate a specially devised Newborn Care Course and, for sustainability of the project, to train local instructors.  We started with a crowdfunding page for my 50th birthday - see more photos and information at https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/julia-thomson-Cameroonian-instructors-project - but registered as a charity in 2017.  

We are planning 1 trip to Cameroon this year where the course is already well established and there are 20 trained or partially trained local instructors and 2 trips to Liberia where we are at the beginning of what is likely to be the same 5 year commitment that we have had to Cameroon.

I overcame my neuroses about aching hips and unstable knees in August 2018 and started running after 51 years of relative inactivity!  I recommend the NHS Couch to 5K app to get you started.  One of the NICHE instructors, Jo Bruce-Jones, ran for NICHE last year in Berlin and there seems no reason not to join her this year.  NICHE has no overheads and all monies are spent on the training project.  Thank you for helping us out! 

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

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.