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OK so #TransChallengeLaura came about for two reasons.

 

Firstly, earlier this year, I was privileged to meet Emmanuel Jal, a singer from Southern Sudan. I attended his charity launch event in London called ‘Lose to Win’ and was introduced through a friend of my mum’s.

 

Emmanuel is the same age as me but comes from a vastly different background. He was born into a country which was only officially recognised last year. The Sudan was in civil war and, at the age of eight, (whilst I was growing up in a loving family, middle-class home, in idyllic Wiltshire; going to school, playing with friends, climbing trees etc) Emmanuel became a child soldier. His story is incredible; heart wrenching but inspirational.

 

Now an internationally acclaimed hip-hop singer, Emmanuel uses his music to tell people his story; and in contrast to the norm for that genre, his lyrics are beautiful, warm and always about peace (or gua in Sudanese Nuer).

 

Emmanuel Jal had fled the army and was rescued by a British Aid worker, Emma McCune.  She took him and other child soldiers to Kenya where they received an education.  Tragically, Emma, his saviour, was later killed in a car accident and it was this tragedy and her work that inspired Emmanuel to set up Gua Africa and to build an academy in her memory.

 

The idea of Lose-to-Win is simple: you give something up, to raise money, to help others.  Emmanuel’s first challenge was to eat only one meal a day until he’d raised enough money to pay for the primary school part of the academy project - this ended up being 662 days.

  

The second reason for #TransChallangeLaura and the reason for the name and Twitter #hashtag is slightly different and has a lot to do with buses.

 

I manage an organisation called wfcap which supports Community Area Partnerships (CAPs) in Wiltshire. CAPs are volunteer-led groups that improve and promote the wellbeing of their area. They carry out community-planning and instigate projects to bring about positive change for their communities.

 

CAPs work on issues across all themes, from arts & culture to Community Safety, from the economy to health but a hot topic recently has been transport and, more specifically, public transport. With central government and local authorities looking to reduce spending there is concern that essential facilities such as local bus services, will be cut – a matter of real significance in a rural county such as Wiltshire.

 

So, to conclude, I decided to bring these two elements together and create a challenge for myself.  As someone who works across the whole county, regularly attending meetings, many held in evenings, I rely heavily on my car.  So in order to experience how it is to be reliant on public transport and the practicalities of this in doing my job, I decided to give up my car for the whole of November.  Due to the nature of my job I get travel expenses through work and so these cover the cost of buses and trains for meetings – I will also walk/cycle where possible.  But what I intend to do is calculate the mileage I would have been covering in my car and personally donate the money I would have spent on petrol to Gua Africa.  I will do this for all car journeys (work and social) that I would have made during the month and donate in installments for each trip.  I'm asking whether people would like to support me, the challenge and the amzing work of Gua Africa by matching my donation for one of my journeys - there'll be a whole range to choose from!

  

Thank you for your support and please follow my mini-blog on Twitter - search #TransChallengeLaura

 

Laura

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