Dear friends,

I am partaking in a fund-raising initiative for a charity named "The Ashah Orphanage Home (with Ashah meaning "hope" in Nepalese) ".

As part of the initiative, Im going to run the Standard Chartered Marathon (10k Group) held in Hong Kong on 20th Feb. 2011. (I have successfully completed the 10k run with official time of 1:03:08, thanks again for all kinds of support).

I would like to extend this opportunity to all who wish to contribute as a support to my effort and to the charity. Any amount of contribution will be greatly appreciated.

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The Ashah Orphanage Home was founded in 1999 by Assad Shah, a friend of mine, when he was an undergraduate student. The shelter was established in the process of donating used clothing to the Kathmandu prison during the winter of 1999 when it came to his attention that there were 5 children in prison at the time only due to homelessness, for the sake of food and shelter.

Years later, the organisation is a fully registered non-government organisation and presently shelters 20 children altogether. These children will similarly come from disadvantaged situations such as being orphaned during the recent civil disruption in the country, out of poverty, and so on. The shelter provides all accommodation, education, and medical expenses for each of the children and 2 caretakers, with a promise to do so through to adulthood. Expenses come to broadly GBP 20,000 (~HK$250,000) per annum.

Assad himself has been actively engaged in all sorts of fund raising activities, including trekking up to Mt. Everest in Sept. 2010. ( The link to his fund-raising page http://www.justgiving.com/Assad-Shah )

The UK-based Asha Foundation (not related) have kindly agreed to receive donations into their account JustGiving towards our own endeavor and will receive a small percentage of donations towards their own cause as thanks.   

Many thanks for your kind support.

Wei