In November 2010 I flew to Addis Ababa with 19 other volunteers to spend 9 days working with the charity Retrak to help the street children of Ethiopia.  It was a short trip, but one which we hope will continue to make a huge impact as while we were there we refurbished the charity's new drop-in centre in Merkato.  As we speak, and for years to come, the existence of this new centre, much larger than the premises Retrak has previously used, means that the charity will be able to help more and more children find a life away from the streets.

Since 2010 new volunteers from GMP have continued to fly out every year to work with Retrak in Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and the charity's newest project in Malawi.  However, my career with GMP ended in 2011 and at that point, I'm sad to say, so did my fundraising.  It's taken me a little while to hit on a new way to raise money for Retrak - it's been bugging me.

Something else that's been bugging me is the fact that I have piles and piles of books in my room that I've never read, gathering dust. Wise words are wasted, when left in an unopened book.  Some day, I said to myself, when I have the time, I will read all those books.  (As random a collection as it is - from sci-fi to self-help, literary fiction to local history.)

The recently it occurred to me: read for Retrak!  Books, any books, would seem precious to any of the children I met in Addis.  I should stop wasting them - I should read them and then pass them on. That's probably more than 100 books.  I'm going to try to read them all in a year.  Please encourage me in my ('what I call', as Miranda Hart might observe) "Bookathon", by donating money to Retrak.

I've already started reading - Pride and Prejudice, ahoy! - and I'll be posting regular videos detailing the scale of the task at hand and how I'm doing.  I'll be encouraging suggestions of what to read next (from the existing selection) and hope people might be tempted to read along for some of the (less obscure) titles.  While donating money, of course.  The videos will appear at my YouTube page:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMrkxhzx6ccwt2igX5MCNwQ

The short time I spent in Addis, meeting the staff of Retrak and the amazing boys they work with, was one of the most extraordinary periods of my life.  The work that Retrak do is astonishing and the staff are among the most dedicated and loving imaginable.  The whole experience was so complex and life-enhancing, I'm finding it difficult to put into words, but I am trying and you can read my attempts thus far at my blog: http://danthackeray.wordpress.com and on www.facebook.com.

The first £2000 of donations on this page are what got me to Ethiopia.  That's me in the picture, helping to pin the Ethiopian flag to the side of the finished centre.  The original target amount was £2000 - I wanted to raise at least that to cover the costs of the trip and to contribute to Retrak's on-going programme of transforming the lives of African street children - giving children who may have been separated from their families, orphaned, abused or trafficked the continuing help which will allow them to realise their own worth.  Retrak's facilities and skilled workers can offer these children the help, education, counselling and medical aid that will enable them to do this.

The next £1000 or came from fundraising and donations taking place during 2011-2012.  Now I have raised the target amount to £3500 - so I hope to add at least £500 to the total amount, through my Bookathon.

The current total that's been donatede to me, both before and since the trip, you can see above.

Fundraising I've taken part in so far includes:

- organising a cake sale and a dress-down day at Rochdale Police Station.

- walking the 9 mile Saddleworth Beer Walk dressed unconvincingly as Elton John (in his denim period).

- holding a 12-hour fundraising concert, Footsteps: a Shindig in aid of Retrak, at Jackson's Pit, Oldham on Saturday July 17th 2010.

- free-abseiling the inside of the Manchester Velodrome, as one of a bunch of volunteers organised by my fellow Ethiopia-tripper Tracy Coward, on Saturday August 21st.  For this event I was sponsored to the tune of £80 by my good friends at the Oldham Coliseum ActingLAB, which has gone directly to Retrak as an offline donation (and so does not show among the donations below).

- abseiling down the tower of Guy's Hospital, London, on 12th March 2011.

- holding two further fundraising concerts at Jackson's Pit, Footsteps Retrak'd and Footsteps Returns, in August and October 2011.

- Now it's time for the Bookathon.

If all that convinces you that Retrak is worth supporting, you can donate right here and now.  And if you like the sound of any of it, why not get involved and do your own fundraising for the charity? 

Thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone who has supported me and Retrak.

UPDATE 05/04/2014.  Although the start of my project has been delayed by my unexpectedly having a new job, with the help of my friend Rik O'Neill I have gone through my collection and detailed the eclectic list of books I haven't read yet.  It is as follows:

1)                        7 Famous One-Act Plays

2)                        100 Classic Stories

3)                        The Aces (Frederick Oughton)

4)                        Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted Houseful

5)                        The Audacity of Hype (Armando Iannucci)

6)                        Bad Brains (Kathe Koja)

7)                        Bag of Jewels (Susan Hayward and Malcolm Cohan)

8)                        The Beano Book 1987

9)                        Behind the Scenes at the Museum (Sarah Atkinson)

10)                    Best Ghost Stories (Charles Dickens)

11)                    Bleak House (Charles Dickens)

12)                    Big Sky New Light

13)                    Books of Blood (Clive Barker)

14)                    The Book of Mormon (Translated by Joseph Smith)

15)                    British Cinema Now (Martyn Auty and Nick Roddick)

16)                    Brittle Limbs (Sarah A Hunter)

17)                    on (Mark Salisbury)

18)                    Captain's Courageous (Rudyard Kipling)

19)                    Cars The New Classics

20)                    Chavs (Owen Jones)

21)                    A Christmas Tale (Charles Dickens)

22)                    Cinema's Strangest Moments (Quentin Falk)

23)                    The City & The City ( Mieville)

24)                    Coastal Disturbances: Four Plays (Tina Howe)

25)                    Coming Back: The Science of Reincarnation (Michael Grant/Austin Gordon/Michael Cremo)

26)                    Complete Plays (Sarah Kane)

27)                    The Dalai Lama's Little Book of Wisdom

28)                    Dark Corners (Stephen Volk)

29)                    David Cronenberg's Scanners (Leon Whiteson)

30)                    Dear Olly (Michael Morpurgo)

31)                    The Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham)

32)                    The Deep (Peter Benchley)

33)                    The Devil Rides Out (Dennis Wheatley)

34)                    Discovering Castles (Walter Earnshaw)

35)                    Doctor Who and the Genesis of the Daleks (Terrance Dicks)

36)                    Doctor Who and the Mutants (Terrance Dicks)

37)                    Doctor Who: The Banquo Legacy ( & Justin Richards)

38)                    Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles (Michael Moorcock)

39)                    Does Anything Eat Wasps? (Mick O'Hare)

40)                    Domain (James Herbert)

41)                    Don't Arm Wrestle A Pirate (Dave Skinner and Henry Paker)

42)                    Dragonflight (Anne McCaffrey)

43)                    The Earthsea Triology (Ursula K LeGuin)

44)                    The Encyclopaedia of Horror (Richard Davis)

45)                    The Eternal Champion (Michael Moorcock)

46)                    Falling Towards (Clive James)

47)                    Far Horizons (Robert Silverberg)

48)                    The Fellowship of the Ring (JRR Tolkein)

49)                    The First Empire Movie Almanac (Kim Newman and Ian Freer)

50)                    Fluke (James Herbert)

51)                    Gerry Anderson - The Authorised Biography (Simon Archer and Stan Nicholls)

52)                    Get A Life (William Shatner/Chris Kreski)

53)                    Ghostly Tales & Sinister Stories of Old Edinburgh (Alan J Wilson, Des Brogan, Frank McGrail)

54)                    Goodbye Soldier (Spike Milligan)

55)                    The Great British Quiz Book (Jonathan Clements)

56)                    Great Lies to Tell Small Kids (Andy Riley)

57)                    Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (Herbert A Wise/Phyllis Fraser)

58)                    Great Vampire Stories

59)                    Great Horror Stories

60)                    A Guide for the Advanced Soul (Susan Hayward)

61)                    The Cavaliers and the Heptonstall Roundheads (David Shires)

62)                    Foundations of Harmony and Counterpoint (RO Morris)

63)                    The Hellbound Heart (Clive Barker)

64)                    (Michael Palin)

65)                    Hints for Artists (CG Trew)

66)                    The Hot Zone (Richard Preston)

67)                    Hollywood (Alexander Walker)

68)                    Ghosts (Frank D McSherry Jnr, Charles G Waugh, Martin H Greenberg)

69)                    How Come There's Never A Dragon When You Need One (MB Connelly)

70)                    I Robot (Isaac Asimov)

71)                    The Illustrated History of Twentieth Century Conflict

72)                    It Was An Accident (Jeremy Cameron)

73)                    Is This Supposed To Be Funny? (Hugleikur Dagsson)

74)                    Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (Rice and Webber)

75)                    Joel and Ethan Coen (Peter Korte and Georg Seesion)

76)                    Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files

77)                    The Kenyon Review Vol XXIV No 3

78)                    Kingdom Come (Alex Ross/Mark Waid)

79)                    Life Comes from Life (AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada)

80)                    Lair (James Herbert)

81)                    The Little Book of Witty Quotes

82)                    The Little Book of Wisecracks

83)                    Loads More Lies to Tell Small Kids (Andy Riley)

84)                    The Look-It-Up Book of Birds

85)                    The Lost History of Aztec and Maya (Charles Phillips)

86)                    The Looney (Spike Milligan)

87)                    Marked for Life (Paul Magrs)

88)                    The Masters (CP Snow)

89)                    Middlemarch (George Eliot)

90)                    The Misanthrope and Other Plays (Moliere)

91)                    Moon (James Herbert)

92)                    Moonraker (Ian Fleming)

93)                    More Pennine Hotpot (Edith M Ralphs)

94)                    The My Word Stories (Frank Muir and Dennis Norden)

95)                    National Heroes (Alexander Walker)

96)                    The Noticeably Stouter Book of General Ignorance (John Lloyd and John Mitchinson)

97)                    The Night Climbers of (Whipplesnaith)

98)                    Night Shift (Stephen King)

99)                    Nightworld (F Paul Wilson)

100)                A New Look At the Dinosaurs (Alan Charig)

101)                Off The Leash (Rupert Fawcett)

102)                On the Ledge (Alan Bleasdale)

103)                The Poems of Sylvia Plath (Selected by Ted Hughes)

104)                The Piano Handbook (Carl Humphries)

105)                The Pickwick Papers (Charles Dickens)

106)                Progressive Quizzes (John G Barton)

107)                The (Gyles Brandreth)

108)                Quintessential Tarantino (Edwin Page)

109)                The Observer's Book of Aircraft

110)                The Observer's Book of Ships

111)                Poems: Walt Whitman

112)                The Raven and Other Favourite Poems (Edgar Allan Poe)

113)                , Writing and Arithmetic (Daniel Smith)

114)                Realities of Faith (Umm Muhammad)

115)                Return of the Bunny Suicies (Andy Riley)

116)                Roger Moore as James Bond (Roger Moore!)

117)                Rubayat of Omar Khayyam

118)                The Sanity Inspector (Alan Coren)

119)                Self-Loathing for Beginners (Lynn Phillips)

120)                Science Fiction Stories (Edward Blishen)

121)                Scottish Ghost Stories (Giles Gordon)

122)                Selected Poems of William Blake (FW Bateson)

123)                Shadows: An Anthology of Short Stories

124)                Shardik (Richard Adams)

125)                Shepperton Studios

126)                The Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson)

127)                Should You Be Laughing At This? (Hugleikur Dagsson)

128)                Silence and Stillness in Every Season (Paul Harris)

129)                The Silence of the Lambs & Red Dragon (Thomas Harris)

130)                Silly Verse for Kids (Spike Milligan)

131)                Sinclair ZX Spectrum + 2

132)                Skin (Kathe Koja)

133)                So Many Books (Gabriel Zaid)

134)                Kubrick: A Biography (John Baxter)

135)                A Steroid Hit The Earth (Martin Toseland)

136)                Strange Days (James Cameron and Jay Cocks)

137)                The State of the Art (Iain M Banks)

138)                Surprised by Joy (CS Lewis)

139)                Swimsuit (James Patterson)

140)                Taking to a Stranger (John Hopkins)

141)                Teach Yourself Books: Handwriting (John Le F Dumpleton)

142)                Teach Yourself Books: Typewriting ()

143)                The Third Man (Graham Greene)

144)                Thurber's Dogs (James Thurber)

145)                Thriller Movies ( )

146)                The Timetable of Technology

147)                The Timewaster Letters (Robin Cooper)

148)                (RL Stevenson)

149)                Twenty One-Act Plays

150)                The Very Bloody History of (John Farman)

151)                The Very Humorous Reciter (Mrs Ernest Pertwee)

152)                The Virgin Suicides (Jeffrey Eugenides)

153)                The Wah-Wah Diaries (Richard E Grant)

154)                Watchmen (Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons)

155)                Watership Down (Richard Adams)

156)                When Eight Bells Toll (Alastair Maclean)

157)                Where Have All The Bullets Gone (Spike Milligan)

158)                The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer)

159)                William the Outlaw (Richmal Crompton)

160)                Wish You Were Here - The Official Biography of Douglas Adams (Nick Webb)

161)                The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Other Plays (Ray Bradbury)

162)                The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook (Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht)

163)                Yoga (James Hewitt)

164)                You Only Live Twice (Ian Fleming)

Aargh.  Give me a year (from the release of my first vlog, which will soon be online.)