Hello everybody!

As some of you will know, it has been my biggest ambition for many years to go and visit and do some voluntary work in Africa. My initial interest in Africa comes from my wonderful Grandfather who left his heart in Zambia way back in the fifties where my mother also spent the early years of her life...his passion for the continent spread to his Grandaughter!

I made an application through International Citizens Service who placed me with a charity called Lattitude Global Volunteering based in Reading, UK. Incredibly, the majority of the costs are funded by the programme (Interntional Citizens Service) - flights, visas, injections (and much more) etc, but in order to ensure that it can continue running, and ultimately to make sure that more young people like myself can get involved, they ask ALL volunteers to raise a minimum of £800 before the commencement of their placement to put back into the organisation.

The ultimate goal of the programme is to bring together 18 to 25-year-olds from different backgrounds to fight poverty in overseas and UK communities. With this in mind, in January 2014 I will set off for Malawi. My placement will focus mainly on improving education in the community with an aim to improve pre school education. We will be involved in developing the infrastructure, training of community teachers and development of new teaching resources, as well as, of course, interacting with the children. 

Here is where I ask for your help, anything you can afford, as much or as little would be greatly appreciated in making this dream of mine a reality, making somebodies life a bit brighter and enabling this incredible scheme to keep running and changing the lives of its volunteers and most importantly, the communities that they work in.

Thankyou very much for reading.