Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I've never been keen on people seeing me... there's suffering enough in the world without me adding to it!  I briefly had a panic I might be conspicuous when I started with white hair at 21, but I quickly made friends with hair colour and have been cheerfully anodyne ever since.

Recently, though, I've been following the work of Advantage Africa and their partners working alongside people who live with albinism in places where generally melanin turns up in skin - a lot! And thanks to a lack of understanding of the causes and consequences of this genetic condition, albinism in Africa can bring with it every threat under and including the Sun. If skin cancer doesn't slay you, the ghoulish enthusiasm some traditional medical practitioners have for your body parts might just do it. Or maybe you'll be allowed to survive, but living a full life - no, sorry, why would we let you...? It makes me cross, and sad, and more so than I am made by my horrible hair and its distressing badgeriness when left untamed.

The happy news is that Advantage Africa and its partners are doing brilliant things to tackle death-dealing discrimination, and I want to help.

http://www.advantageafrica.org/news/2014/09/05/albinism

So my hairdressing spends will be going to Advantage Africa's albinism project till my target is reached. If you can help me reach my goal a little faster, I'll be very grateful, as will everyone who has to put up with me whilst I grow more and more unevenly grizzled and grumpy. Most importantly, we can help change a generation's prospects by educating and protecting people whose genetic white is even more hard-core than what I'm seeing at my roots right now!

Photographic updates as and when donations happen... and if you know me well you'll know how much that's going to sting!