We are trying to get the dads involved a bit more with the organisation. We have had trouble doing this in the past, especially as the political history here has made people distrustful of each other and so there is little feel of community. Also, the groups we have been running, sewing classes and discussion groups, are not exactly the kind of thing that the dads want to be involved in. We want to try and bring people together, and someone came up with the idea of football, and I really think it will work.

Those of you who know me, will be aware that I have never had any interest in football, perhaps the opposite. I have watched how much enjoyment other people get from it, though, and I know how much fun I have had doing team sporting activities. So we hope that the dads will enjoy it, the opportunity to spend some time with friends and let off some steam in the little time they have when they are not working.

We hope that children will be able to come and watch as well, and maybe we can also think about children’s teams if the idea takes off. We can get the dads to train the kids and so the project can be inexpensive and long lasting. We would also then get the dads interacting with the children and, hopefully, start to see how rewarding this is, most people here still see childcare as the domain of women.

We need to buy a decent football to get started - 40 sol (£10)

Would be useful to have spare footballs for practising and training - 100sol (£25)

Cones for training - 60sol (£15)

Goal posts (I am hoping we can get the dads to construct them) - 100sol (£25)

I think it would be good to get bibs/shirts with the positions on. Some of the dads may not have played much football and we want to teach the rules and do proper training (maybe I am being naive - perhaps they have all played football, but I think bibs/shirts would be cool, make them feel like a proper team). - 150sol (£50)

Ongoing costs: It would be good to be able to a give a piece of fruit to the dads at half time, if they are going to be playing sport. Perhaps some water. These running costs add up to be the most expensive thing. A budget of 10sol (2.50) per week would cost 500sol (£125) to run the project for a year (there will be a few weeks when the group doesn’t run)

If the project is really popular, we would love to think about getting proper kit in the future, like trainers and shorts (we don‘t need football boots because they will be playing in the sand - is there a specialist football equivalent for this - I have no idea?!), but at the moment it is more sensible to think about just having what we need to get the idea off the ground. - and really dreaming, we could make a proper pitch which could be used by the whole community!!! (anyone fancy helping with this then please let me know)

We are also starting a new extra curricular lessons with the primary school kids here (we have around 250 enrolled in the programme). The scheme we are planning on running will differ greatly from the style in which they are taught at school where children just copy from the board (the statistics on the quality of education here are pretty stark, there is no free schooling for children as even for the cheapest schools they have to buy books, equipment and uniforms which many families cannot afford (this is what SKIP provides), and the teaching standard was marked 125th out of 127 developing countries). We want the children to learn interactively. Using a theme each week to give the children insight into their own reality and also that of the world around them.

This new project will require 4 Spanish teachers and one Spanish teaching coordinator (already employed, local staff). I am searching for Spanish speaking volunteers for the programme but, with making sure that the other projects we are running are also staffed, I am concerned that we will struggle to find enough people to teach. In addition, we want to be able to train local staff here. So that they are able to continue working here and train better teachers in the future. To this end, we need resources to fund a teaching position for a local staff member. We will pay them 500 soles (£125) per month to work between 25 and 30 hours per week. It works out at less than 50 pence per hour - so you can see that even a small donation can really help us a lot here. On what most people are earning in the UK, one hour's salary will pay for half a week (and when you consider the tax back, it's even more than that).

I want to be able to fund this position for the next year, so that we have time to look for other funding options and consider the longevity of the Project. At 500 soles per month, we need 6000 soles for the year which is roughly £1250.

Check out the website www.skipperu.org