In a normal year, Mission Direct sends teams of volunteers to 12 countries to build schools, community centres and medical facilities, as well as to support local community outreach services to poor and vulnerable people.

The charity would normally fund itself by retaining a small portion of the contributions that the 300-400 volunteers give to fund their volunteer activities each year. This income was removed very suddenly last year as the pandemic meant that volunteers could not travel. Although we carried on supporting partners and projects overseas, we lacked the financial resources to support ourselves. Thankfully, through a combination of generosity from our supporters and access to some of the government support, we managed to survive 2020 but face the same challenges again in 2021, facing a shortfall of £127,000.

We remain committed to continuing to do good and important work overseas this year and have an ambitious programme of work in many countries. However, we need to turn to our supporters again to get Mission Direct itself through the year and ask that you support our "Pushing through to '22" campaign in one of the following ways.

1. Please do a sponsored event of your choice, in March or April, with the theme of 22. Create your fundraising page associated with this campaign by clicking the "Start fundraising" button on the right. Then you will be able to ask your friends and family to sponsor your 22 themed challenge to support us.

2. Give a donation on this page by clicking "Give now."

3. Set up a regular donation for Mission Direct which will help us plan more effectively based on being able to anticipate expected income. You can do that by going to missiondirect.org/regulargiving

If there is anything you can do to help us, it will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for helping us to Push through to '22.