My name is Sam Birchall and I am undergraduate student at the University of Warwick. I am planning on taking a trip to Kenya as part of the Kenyan Orphan Project. The aforementioned project is a UK registered charity committed to supporting the health and education of orphaned and vulnerable children in Africa. Their projects and partners are currently focused in western Kenya. KOP (Kenyan Orphan Project) was set up by University of Nottingham graduates in 2001 and in the last 12 years it has made a massive difference to the lives of the area’s most impoverished children by building a hospital, a health clinic, three schools, two community-feeding centres and a support shelter for the many Kisumu street children. Each and every day the charity helps over 3,400 orphans.

Linked to the project work in Africa is an active UK student programme in which KOP university groups provide direct support for projects. This makes KOP unique because students from the UK help to fund projects at a grass-roots level for Kenyan communities, who are then able to take the projects forward themselves. One of the key objectives of KOP is to make long-term, sustainable change.

This July we will travel to Kenya to help with various new projects but most importantly we will spend time engaging with the children.

However this can only happen if I am able to raise my required target which stands at £800.

I would like to point out that 100% of the money I raise will go directly to the children in Kenya – I am funding the trip to Kenya myself and the charity do not use any sponsorship for any of their administration costs, so every single penny donated will go directly to helping the children.