Some of you may know that I didn't have the most privileged childhood, however I had amazing support from various youth agencies and I am now in the fortunate position to be able to give something back to the youth of today (hopefully whilst having an amazing experience myself).

I am volunteering with Raleigh International to manage groups of 17-24 year olds in Borneo for three months from January.

I have paid all the costs myself (over £2,500) but I would really love your support in raising another £500 as I truly believe in what Raleigh is trying to achieve (see below for how your donations make a difference).

It won't be all sunshine and smiles for three months, we will be building a kindergarten, water feed systems, helping to protect the world's smallest bears and improving infrastructure at vital research stations. The kit list includes outdoor gloves for working with cement (eek have I really signed up for manual labour!) and yes mine are pink.

I really hope you will support me and Raleigh International, whose projects enable young people to experience and help protect not only Borneo’s pristine and wild conservation areas but also life in its varied ethnic communities. For more information, please visit Raleigh's website: www.raleighinternational.org

I don't need birthday or Christmas cards presents as I'll no longer have a home to store them in - please make a donation instead.

Thank you.

Sarah x

 

Where does your money go?

If you're wondering why a 3 month expedition seems to be more expensive than a 3 month volunteering project then here's an explanation.

On an expedition we are working with teams of people, often up to 120 people at one time, and transporting them into remote regions to a variety of project sites, ensuring their safety as well as being in constant communication with them at all times.

We also run expeditions year round and invest in a permanent field base and in full-time staff in each country in order to develop genuine partnerships to ensure that projects are worthwhile and sustainable.

Money from participants covers the cost of running our permanent field bases and the costs of having permanent staff - without this infrastructure we simply could not build up the relationships we have with the communities and project partners to create sustainable projects. However, it does not cover the costs of building materials and local labour for our projects and we fundraise for these separately.

We also need to find additional funding for our partnership programme so that we can enable young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to join Raleigh expeditions and funding for our host country venturer programme.