I recently made the brave (and a little bit mad) decision to run the Leeds Half Marathon on the 12th May this year, to raise money for a school and charity very important to myself - Kankaboom Children's School through the charity Alliance for Youth Development UK!

In the summer of 2017 I spent 6 weeks volunteering in Ghana, and whilst in the area of Cape Coast I was lucky enough to meet the lovely Shadee Gerayesh from Oxford who had recently set up the charity and was in the process of building a school in a rural village called 'Kankaboom'. This school currently provides 25+ children with an education and a hot meal everyday, as well as helping with the medical costs of many people in the village as sadly they can't afford the insurance or medical bills.

Shadee is returning to Kankaboom this June for the 8th time, to pay the teachers their salaries and start preparations for building another 2 classrooms for the older children, to prevent them having to walk long distances to the next village for their education. As you can imagine this requires a lot of time, money and effort, and I wanted to help in any way I could to see these amazing children and their school grow and grow!

I am not and have never been a runner, in fact my mum almost laughed when I told her that I was planning to run 21km through the hilly streets of Leeds! Anything you could donate would be greatly appreciated - all of the money goes straight to Shadee and AYD UK, and so directly to the care and education of Kankaboom's beautiful children.

Thank you for all your kindness, generosity and support!