As some of you may know I am currently training to run the Paris Marathon in April this year.

I wasn’t planning on fundraising at all, as this was mainly a personal challenge. That being said, I recently met the crew at The Literacy
 Pirates and learnt a bit more about what they do and their work to help children and young people in the local communities of Hackney and Haringey. Their impact is remarkable and I would like to raise as much money as I can to help them on their journey!

The Literacy Pirates is an enterprising charity helping young people to develop their literacy, confidence and perseverance, so that they achieve both in school and in the world beyond.

As we know, young people sometimes need some extra help to achieve their full potential. The Literacy Pirates provide reading and writing support to help young people do better in the classroom, while also developing their broader skills. And the thing they really excel at is making learning a great adventure! The ‘Young Pirates’ come to the ‘Ship of Adventures’ after school – it is a weird and wonderful out-of-school learning environment complete with secret passageway, an underwater cave and a ship’s cat. Young people receive help with their reading through targeted reading support programs. They also design and create unique products and work with professionals to produce their own books, films and audio apps.

If you want to know more about this incredible learning program I would strongly recommend watching their impact video:

http://www.hackneypirates.org/our-impact/

Next term, the Young Pirates at both the Haringey and Hackney ships will be developing and producing audio apps, which are popular among the young people, teachers and volunteers as they are easy to share with extended networks internationally. They will visit an actual recording studio to capture and collate their individual contributions, which will be made accessible via various platforms including mobile phone and Facebook. This is the last project before
 the Young Pirates graduate from the Learning Program and celebrate all their hard work with their teachers and families. I would be delighted if we could help them with this great project.

Ideally I would love us to reach £420. Thinking about the £10 raised per kilometer will certainly help me to go over « the  wall » and finish this first marathon.

Donations of any amount will help; the gesture is almost more important than the amount itself. I will also match and donate the equivalent of the total amount raised because I really think this project and young people deserve it!

Thanks for your support!

Tommy