My name is Oliver.  I am 13yrs old.  When i was born i weighed less than a bag of sugar. But since that initial hick up life has gone very well relatively speaking. I live in a great place, I go to a fab school, in fact it's a castle (literally).....all in all life is pretty AWESOME!    

At Speech Day this year I listened to a talk by a lady called Olivia Faulkner. Olivier went to the same school as me, but she left Kimbolton School over 10 years ago now.  Since then she set up a charity called Rise Africa UK.....and it now educates over 80 of the poorest children in Tanzania. Before Olivia founded Rise Africa, these kids had little hope of ever being educated. 

I have always been aware of people who are less fortunate than I am....primarily because my mum likes to remind me of it on a daily basis when i refuse to eat my greens! I used to tell mum to give money to all the poor people she sees on the streets, but she said If she did that she would have no money left to pay the mortgage!  So i thought i should find some other way of helping. The reason i chose Rise Africa is because it feels like it has more chance of making a real difference.  So I found out about the children and decided, if I could raise enough money to give just one child the chance of an education, then I will have made a difference at least to one persons life and hopefully given them a chance of a future as good as mine. 

Athumani Ally is the child I chose to sponsor.  He doesn't know me, but i' know quite a bit about him and one day i may even get to meet him. He lives with his mum and two older brothers in a mud hut in Tanzania.  His dad very sadly died in 2013. His mum tries really hard to feed and care for her children, but its hard as she cannot work full time.  Athumani has never been to school, but this month he started school for the very first time EVER.  My aim is for every day that I go to school he should go to school too.  It costs me £21 a month. 

In order to raise the £21 each month my first big fundraising event is an African Summer Banquet on 5th August and I'm busy planning to make sure its a night to remember.  I would like to say thank you to anybody who feels able to help me to achieve this goal over the coming years and in doing so have touched Athumani's life in a way that  he would thank you for if he could.

Thank you for supporting me and allowing me to make a difference to somebody else's life 

Oliver