As many of you will know, one of my day jobs involves assisting students from my school in their university applications. Although they face many obstacles, if they manage to secure a place to study at a UK university, funding is not normally one of them. Students from backgrounds where the family income is below a certain amount will normally have their fees and living costs covered by the government and/or the universities.

Our recent trip to Zimbabwe revealed that the situation there is very different. We were struck by the fact that all medical students (and indeed all university students) have to fund their own courses at university. Most have to take on additional jobs whilst studying and many drop out of the courses due to inability to pay their fees. This means that promising students are lost and that a country that is already stricken by great hardship is deprived of doctors who could make a difference.

We are in the process of setting up a small charity that will make a contribution to addressing this issue. Our mission is to help struggling Zimbabwean medical students reach their potential by assisting with their tuition fees. We will support students who are already enrolled in medical school, but who find themselves in financial difficulties. We will do this in partnership with a doctor friend who is teaching at the University of Zimbabwe Medical School in Harare.

I am running the Hackney Half Marathon on April 30th and would be very grateful if you might consider making a donation to our charity via my JustGiving page. Because DOTZ is not fully registered yet, I am having to crowdfund rather than link the donations to the charity account but I promise that all donations will be put in a separate account and transferred to the charity as soon as it is formalised.

Thanks for the support and think of me on the 30th-I haven't trained as much as I would have liked and it is going to be PAINFUL!!

Tasha