I have been fundraising and serving as an ambassador for Street Child of Sierra Leone for 14 years now.

During the course of my involvement with the organisation, a number of sobering statistics have given me pause for thought.

Did you know, for example that 250 million children are currently out of school worldwide? Or that in Afghanistan, children are being denied education on the basis of gender? An estimated 3.7 million children in that country – of which 60% of girls – are out of school. Cast your mind back a couple of years to the height of the Covid pandemic: parents up and down the land were upset about the prospect and potential consequences of their children missing *a few weeks* of school. Imagine how the parents of children denied an entire education feel.

Since Street Child was founded back in 2008, it has impacted over 1 million children worldwide. In Sierra Leone alone – the organisation’s birthplace – it has reached over 246,000 children. Since his beginnings, it has expanded its operations to 15 or so countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Most recently, it has partnered with local organisations in Ukraine (6.2 million refugees have fled to neighbouring countries, decimating the prospects of getting education for a whole generation of children).

Any country’s most precious natural resource is… it’s children. It really is a no-brainer – we should be maximising these young people’s chances of getting the best possible start in life. After all, it is they who will be spearheading their country’s economic growth and development in barely a decade's time.

A few dozen people (mostly Europeans) are about to return to Sierra Leone to visit Street Child projects and meet the people in-country who spearhead them.

Some of us have been travelling to Makeni every year since 2012. Why? Because we truly, truly believe in what Street Child is doing... and every year we get to see tangible proof of how effective its projects are.

Each time I visit the country, I see first-hand just how vital, and how appreciated, this money is. Over the years, I have visited Street Child projects in Makeni, Masimra, Magburaka, Freetown, Bo, Lunsa and numerous other tiny villages and settlements. The teachers I first met over a decade ago in the schools I visited were men and women who had only just been recruited. Then on subsequent visits, I found that they themselves were recruiting and training new teachers. And year in, year out, the pupils I meet are children who – until Street Child’s intervention – had been eking out a living on the streets of Sierra Leone for their survival.

I have seen just how much the country has changed in only a few years. Despite people’s living conditions, there is a palpable sense of optimism in the air, and it feels as though the country is on the move again after 10 years of civil war and bloodshed, followed by the world's deadliest Ebola epidemic, followed by the mudslides of August 2017. This progress can – in no small part – be attributed to the work of Street Child and the help of people like you. To say that I'm grateful for the support that I have received from my friends and colleagues over the years simply does not cut it.

But thank you.

I will continue to raise money for Street Child until I am no longer able to do so. And I will continue to travel to Sierra Leone – to witness first-hand the benefits that the money I raise money is bringing – as often as I can until I constitute a flight risk.

Do – please – consider making a donation to Street Child this year. When I next see you, I will look you straight in the eye and tell you with absolute certainty that you have done the right thing.

You will – after all – be helping to bring about long-lasting change in the lives of some of the world's poorest children.

P.S. If you think you have come to the end of the road as far as Street Child is concerned, I will completely understand. But perhaps you could consider sharing the link on social media…?