PONT is a small Welsh charity making a big difference in the region of Mbale in Eastern Uganda.We save lives by training health workers in rural villages. Our motorbike ambulances get mums in labour down poor roads to health centres. Our goat project means vulnerable families can provide shelter, nutrition and education for orphans they look after. Our projects touch many areas – community health, emergency health, education, clean water, solar power, climate change, livelihoods. They’re all about reducing the impact of poverty.

I have been volunteering with PONT since 2005. As a volunteer, I have made 17 one week visits to Mbale.

First-hand, I have seen the needs there. They are huge, which as anyone who has ever visited quickly realises, are on a scale that doesn't strike home when just reading or hearing about it beforehand. It was hard to come back the first time I went, there was just so much that needed doing. But the point of PONT is that we help the people in Mbale to help themselves. They are willing and able. What they need from us is training, expert advice, and funding to enable them to get on and do it. They are the ones who are running the PONT projects on the ground. Many volunteers go to Mbale with PONT, and that helps us to monitor that funds are being used wisely, and projects are on track.

All visits are self-funded by the volunteers (unless they manage
to find some funding from outside grants etc.), and the time often comes out of their annual holiday entitlement from their normal jobs. Funds raised for PONT go to the actual projects, not towards the costs of volunteer visits.

I have paid the cost of doing the bungee jump myself.

See www.pont-mbale.org.uk for more details of all the projects.