I joined United World Schools last year - an amazing charity which builds and operates primary schools in the most remote and deprived areas of poorer countries. We have so far built 250 schools and reached over 43,000 children in Cambodia, Myanmar and Nepal – children who would otherwise never go to school. This charity is now my biggest personal commitment, both in terms of time and financial giving.

Over the past year we have all been reminded how incredibly important schools are to children in this country. Now that UK schools have reopened and we can start to look forward to better times ahead, this is a perfect time to give children in much poorer countries a chance to go to school for the very first time. In Nepal it would take 6 year-old Amir three hours to walk to and from school every day - we want to deliver many more schools within reach of children like Amir to transform their life chances and break the cycle of poverty.

Inspired by the story of Amir, I have committed myself to walk 180 minutes every day for a week - that’s 3 hours in addition to a busy working day, every day. That means at least 100k of distance covered. All of which will be measured carefully on Strava! Of course walking 3 hours per day is much easier for me than it is for Amir – I have the luxuries of good nutrition, footwear, age (!) and easy footpaths, and I am only doing this for one week. But it’s a start…..

If you would like to sponsor this campaign, any donations would be gratefully received by United World Schools, and all donations from UK taxpayers will be matched (ie doubled) £ for £ by the UK Government's Aid Match scheme until 29 July.

By the way, United World Schools is not only a great cause, it also operates a very efficient, low cost business model - it costs only £75 per year to educate a child like Amir in one of our primary schools. I can assure you that any donation will be money well invested by United World Schools. 

Thanks to everyone who has already pledged support I have raised the fund-raising target again to £6,000. This would pay for 80 children to attend one of our schools for a year, plus a further 80 children paid for by Aid Match, making 160 children in total.

Peter