We are running in support of Cecily's Fund, which is a small international development charity based in the UK which helps to provide education to orphaned and vulnerable Zambian children. It was set up in 1998 in memory of my wonderful colleague Philippa Eastwood's sister, Cecily, who was killed in a car accident whilst on her Gap year in Zambia.  Since then, Cecily's Fund has helped many thousands of children to attend school, train as teachers and receive health information and entrepreneurship training.

The charity works with Zambian partner organisations to ensure that Zambian orphans and vulnerable children have access to education and are empowered to lead a self-reliant, healthy, fulfilling lives. They help to develop programmes that lessen dependence, share knowledge, build community responsibility an cohesion and create lasting change.

Cecily’s Fund supports orphans and vulnerable children to go to school by assisting with uniforms, school fees and exam fees.  It pays for the entire running costs (teachers’ salaries etc) of a community school including a midday meal for the children in an area where there are simply too few government school places for children.  The charity funds a peer education programme where school-leavers are trained up in health/sex education so they can go back and hold workshops in schools, as well as for a number of school leavers to go to teacher training college.  They also have a programme, assisted by Comic Relief, to help local communities track the effectiveness of government policies regarding the welfare of orphans and vulnerable children. 

Please support this cause!