Back in the summer of 2009, when I was still pretty bright and bushy tailed, I went to volunteer some English teaching in Malawi.

Flying into Tanzania's Dar Es Salaam, I travelled by bus, train and a stint of hitchhiking (at the Malawian border I became an illegal immigrant after ignorantly neglecting to get my passport stamped, but that's another story), I boarded a coach in the northern city of Mzuzu. This is where I had the pleasure of meeting Tami Taina.

Although I have no real recollection of the journey's length, I know that it flew by and the icing on the cake was Tami's kindness at not only offering the hospitality of a place to stay (complete with a mosquito net!) to digest the tasty family dinner that was provided.

Thanks to the communication age, we have managed to retain fairly frequent contact through both Facebook and Skype. Only this morning, I was deeply saddened to receive the news that Tami is suffering from nerve compression syndrome.

As it sounds, this is a beastly disease. Not having the fortune of receiving adequate healthcare through our cherished NHS, Tami has been left having to raise this large sum of money (the extent of medical treatment seems to be a referral letter...) to receive proper treatment in New Delhi!

This is a case of some urgency. I know that we always have plenty of things to spend our money on and never quite enough of it, yet this is a way that a tangible difference can be made to the life of a tremendously warm hearted person facing the challenges of our potentially cruel world.

Any help would be much appreciated and on a personal level for me, it would be a worthy way of me repaying the support and safety that I was offered. To Tami's friends and relatives, it must be a real relief to know that good thoughts towards her recovery can be channelled in one place. And for everybody else, think what an easy way this is to inject a bit of good into the world!

Thank you all.