Dear Everyone
Mvumi School – www.mvumischooltrust.co.uk
 
We are three English students on our gap year in Tanzania who are working at a wonderful secondary school called Mvumi in a town roughly an hour’s drive from Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania.
 
Part of the ‘deal’ is that we engage in a bit of fundraising as the school, which has over 400 pupils, is funded to a great extent on donations.  These donations, like all the school’s finances, are managed by the Mvumi School Trust, a UK registered charity and, as it says on the website, the trustees take great care to ensure that any donations are used wisely and for the purpose for which they are intended.  Money is not squandered on unnecessary administration.
 
To this end, in the second week of December, after having spent 12 weeks here in Mvumi, we are climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and in so doing we are intending to raise money for the school trust, in particular for the sponsorship of students, over a third of whom have either bursaries or scholarships without which they – who are carefully selected on the basis that they are more diligent and outgoing than the standard students – would have little or no chance of realising their potential.  Over the last ten years many have excelled and subsequently become outstanding representatives of both their school and country.
 
Kilimanjaro, standing at 5,895m, is the tallest mountain in Africa and the world’s highest free-standing mountain.  Climbing it will be hard work, hugely challenging but worth it if we can raise money for such a worthy cause.  Our target is to raise £5,000 between us and we can assure you that anything which anyone is nice enough to give will go straight to its intended destination as our parents are covering the entire cost of the expedition.  We are only too well aware that everyone will have received countless emails along the lines of this one over the years but having seen first-hand what this scheme does for these children we implore you to donate to it as it really is a fabulous cause and the impact it has on the lives of the children involved is quite simply life changing for them.

Our expedition starts on 9th December and finishes on 15th.
 
With lots of love
 
James Boggis-Rolfe, Gabriella Rose and Hughie Leveson-Gower