Hi! Thanks for supporting me as I raise money for Sheffield Association for the Voluntary Teaching of English!

The 50 for 50 fundraising drive is a opportunity to celebrate 50 years of SAVTE, whose mission began in 1974, when steelworkers from Firth Brown's, decided to help their newly arrived Yemeni colleagues learn to speak English in their homes, as shift patterns meant they couldn't access formal English classes.

This act of kindness changed lives, enabling integration, friendship and community connection, and this tradition of kindness has continued in Sheffield for the past 50 years.

Fast forward to today, and SAVTE volunteers are still helping over 1700 people each year to gain the everyday English they need to build new lives in Sheffield. With a focus on community-based learning, SAVTE plays a vital role in connecting people through language, and changing lives.

I've been a trustee with SAVTE for the past 3 years and I'm so proud of the work the staff and volunteers do. Like all charities, SAVTE is finding it hard to secure the funding they need to continue this vital work, so I'm raising money to help ensure their work can continue for another 50 years.

The challenge:

I've set myself the challenge of learning a phrase in 50 languages, reflecting the many languages spoken by the learners supported by SAVTE. This is to highlight the difficulty of learning new languages, and how important language is to feeling connected, supported and empowered.

The phrase I'll be learning is: "creating community through conversation" and I'll be finding people to help me learn this phrase in 50 different languages.

Please help support me in this challenge by donating whatever you can afford. I'll be making a video for each language I learn and sharing that on my Instagram page between now and (hopefully!) the end of September 2024. I'll also share updates on here.

See: savte.org.uk for more information about SAVTE and the wonderful work they do.

Thanks for your support!