In September 2018, myself (as a newly qualified Speech and Language Therapist) and 7 coursemates from City, University of London are volunteering in Cambodia for 3 months as part of the City Cambodia project. This project has been running since 2007, where graduates like ourselves have volunteered to empower and educate local professionals and families in basic Speech and Language Therapy.

We will be in 4 teams providing advice and intervention across schools, children's hospitals, clinics. We will also be teaching on a new university programme.

Between now and September we will be doing lots of fundraising and gathering of resources for our trip! Here are some ideas we have:

Giving up one thing per month:

I've decided to give up one thing per month and I'd like you guys to support me! I'm giving up things I'm finding it hard to picture living without (I think cheese may be the hardest one...).

April - meat

Although this month was pretty hard, I think it's going to be the easiest out of the lot! I ended up doing a lot of eating and cooking with vegetarian and vegan friends, and I've got a few new recipes up my sleeve! I also got to try lots of new dishes while eating out that I would never normally try, because I'd always go for the meat option. The hardest part of the whole was at a friend's BBQ and being the only veggie - turns out a veggie burger doesn't really cut it!

May - plastic (single use)

So this month was weird. The people at the bakery were slightly confused when I asked for my bread in a paper bag rather than a plastic one, but at least I got nice bread out of it! Turns out there's quite a lot you can't buy when you're not buying plastic. Pasta and rice have been pretty much off limits so I've been living on potatoes and bread (so life could be worse). Cheese and meat (two of my favourite things in the whole world) have also been impossible to buy, but at least I've been allowing myself to eat them when I eat out. I've desperately needed new pens but haven't bought any because they all come in single use plastic - meaning ALL my revision has been done in pencil. But hey, that's cheaper. I think it's going to be easy to continue a lot of these habits from now on (e.g. buying veg loose or from the market) .. but it turns out I miss cheese way too much, and my own home-made hummus is terrible compared to shop bought.

June - bread

I thought bread would be harder than it was to give up! I just ended up with leftovers for meals every day instead of sandwiches, and that's a pretty good deal. Living without pizza and garlic bread was pretty sad, though.

July - dairy

So this month I had surgery and needed to be looked after for nearly two weeks, so for 8 days I let myself eat dairy.

August - 10,000 steps per day.

Instead of giving something up in August I've decided to try and walk 10,000 steps a day!

AAC Week: Monday 21st May - Friday 25th May

Tamsin McKelvey and I did not talk for a whole 5 days. This doesn't mean we fell out, it means we didn't speak at all for the whole week. We had to rely on Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) to interact with the world around us. This involves signing, communication books, and apps. Those who rely on AAC for their day to day communication are often unable to communicate using their speech, leaving AAC their only option. By using AAC only for 5 days we hope we have raised awareness of the difficulties faced.

This week was actually incredibly challenging. Every single interaction with people is affected, and half the time when people failed to understand my meaning I just gave up. All that has kept me going is that I get to speak again in two hours (midnight of Friday the 25th May - eep!) so I cannot imagine how it feels to be silent all the time. I've been so stuck in my own head, and for someone who usually shares every thought she has with the person nearest to her, it's felt very strange!

Put it this way, AAC week has definitely consolidated (is that the word I mean...) my goal to help people for whom communication is as difficult as this, all the time.

Any donation, big or small, would be greatly appreciated!