Update 14 December

People - friends, supporters, colleagues and family. Thank you all ever so much - your contributions and messages of support have been amazing! My fundraising has now come to a close and overall we have raised over £8,550 including Gift Aid - that is truly truly amazing. Thank you all once again.

I guess my next update will be from Kigali.....so watch this (or probably your email space) for details!

cheers, Steve

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Update from 4 December

Before I go to Rwanda I decided to raise money for VSO - with the help of old university, school and work friends I raised over £5,500 through our Thames river crossings challenge. You can read more about how we did this below....but following on from this with your help I have raised another £1,500 through the KCLSU table tennis marathon.

On Friday 4 December I challenged colleagues from KCLSU and King's College London to play table tennis against me continuously for six hours non-stop. Each colleague  volunteered their time and made a donation to VSO in order to play me. On the day I played over 25 colleagues during the six hours and completed 98 eleven point games - winning 78 and losing 19 - so a massive thank you to all of you that played, donated and supported our efforts (esp. to Anthony who kept the contenders coming and kept score for six hours - a feat in its own right!).

Background

As you probably know by now I am going to Rwanda to spend two years working there as a VSO volunteer with Rwanda's National Federation for Disabled People.

My partner, Pickles, and I will be living and working with the local community in Kigali. Acting as management advisors we will be helping the 800,000 disabled people in Rwanda secure better rights, education, access and work. Disability is a huge issue for Rwanda as a result of genocide, poverty and war: 10% of the population has a disability; 60% of Rwanda’s disabled persons are not able to work; only 5% are able to read and write.

You can support us by using this JustGiving page to make a safe and secure donation now.

If you can donate as much as you can afford to help VSO continue its international development work that would be fantastic and really really appreciated! 

VSO is a leading development charity with almost 1,500 skilled professionals currently working in over 40 of the world's poorest countries. VSO's unique approach to development in founded on volunteers, working together with local communities to fight poverty and achieve lasting change. 

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.

Thank you once again!

cheers, Steve (and colleagues from KCLSU and King's College London)

Update from Saturday 24 October:

On Saturday 24 October nine of us set off from Greenwich at 9.10am on our bicycles to cross the River Thames 29 times; we used one tunnel, two ferries, one railway bridge, two footbridges, one lock , crossed two bridges twice, and used a total of 22 different road bridges, covered 40.5 miles and 6 hours and 8 minutes of riding later we reached Hampton Wick! All of us made it in one piece, we only had two punctures, got lost once, had one low speed tumble, and only had to resort to isotonic gel on one occassion.....

The weather was not at its best but the rain did not put us off....in the process and with the amazing help and support of our friends and families we raised over £5,500 for VSO's work in some of the world's poorest countries. Overall we received over 100 separate donations - each and every one will help VSO make an enormous difference.

Thank you all ever so much for giving us the inspiration - and thank you especially to Colin, Grant, Henry, Justin, Brian, Matt, Paul and Phil for putting in the miles and effot - I enjoyed every single minute of cycling with you and hope you did too!

Thanks, Steve