For the past 19 years I have campaigned for Dorah to have essential surgery and to regain quality of life. If I could have imagined how difficult the road would be, I might never have started. And as the years pass, it does not get easier. But I, my son Tristan and all those dear friends and colleagues who subsequently came to help, have changed hundreds of lives now. 

We have helped burns survivors to conquer mountains of the mind by a mix of exemplary surgery, innovative rehabilitation, camaraderie and tough love. The result is a group of young people from across Africa and some even further afield who are survivors. Victims no more.

They include those who have won gold at the Paralympics, work as lawyers, study medicine, qualified as bakers and plumbers, and so many more stories of overcoming the odds.

While all the physical challenges of missing fingers or limbs, of baldness or scars, are a perpetual reminder of what they have been through, the biggest challenge every single day for ever, is social rejection for looking different.

We want to raise money to spend on immediate needs, to pay hospital fees where surgery cannot be obtained for free, and ultimately to run an international architectural competition to build our own hospital. It will be Chishamiso – Place of Miracles. The miracle will simply be that everyone who works there will be there because they want to be. Combining medical and academic excellence into an environmentally-friendly African hospital based on love and pragmatism will allow us to repair and heal children that people wrongly think are too-damaged to repair. That’s what we’ve been doing for years. But now we want to do it bigger and better. 

Somehow we must raise at least £35,000 to run the architectural competition. And after that the money for the land. And then the money for building, staffing and running the hospital. The first step is along the 13 mile Children of Fire Monopoly Moonwalk board on Saturday 12^th September 2015. (and the following year on Friday 2 September 2016).  

Please walk with me, with your own JustGiving page. Or sponsor. Or offer your expertise in any way that allows us to help the children even more than we do already. Don’t forget that we get an extra 25% from government if you can sign up for the GiftAid component as well, please).