This summer I will be travelling to Panama as part of the University of Exeter's Global Brigades Human Rights Brigade to provide pro-bono legal consulting and legal rights resources to rural Panamanian communities.

As a group of volunteers, we will be assisting Panamanian lawyers to resolve family law cases, and provide workshops on human rights topics to empower communities.The brigade project has four main components: legal clinics, family law cases, educational workshops, and civic engagement and empowerment.

Low access to justice is a real problem in Panama, with many community members being denied legal services and many cases unattended or unresolved for many years. As part of the brigade, I will be promoting sustainable protection of human rights in the communities of Eastern Panama.

My fundraising target is £620, which I have begun to raise through bake sales and family and friends' kind donations. I am now also taking part in the Battle of Lansdown to help raise all the money I need to go to Panama! This is an obstacle course race involving 10km of extreme terrain with 35 different obstacles - not easy by any means!

And the money raised is not just going towards a summer holiday (I promise)! I will be paying any personal costs, such as flights, myself.

60% of my fundraised contribution is used for brigade specific expenses, namely to fund the lawyers who are on staff during brigades, whose work in the following weeks and months goes towards solving the individual cases seen during the Human Rights Brigade.

35% will go toward program sustainability, allowing Global Brigades to create longer-term partnerships with the community to ultimately leave an infrastructure of community-led committees and locally hired technicians to perpetuate projects.

Any donation, however small, would be highly appreciated. What more could you want? Donating to a worthy cause and getting to see me covered in mud?!

Thank you to you all!

Beth x