Thanks for visiting my fund raising page.   This year I am running the Hong Kong Marathon and the London Marathons to support the Jane Bubear Sport Foundation and Charterhouse in Southwark.  

The Jane Bubear Sport Foundation was set up to support sporting good causes.  Its current particular focus is on making sports kit available to young people in communities in need whether through war, disaster or otherwise.  It has provided kit for rugby, cricket, football and volleyball to 360 youngsters in five schools in an area of Sri Lanka still affected by the ravages of  the Tsunami.  It has arranged to have the kit customised with the name of the schools concerned and provided sports shoes for children where having shoes in the first place is far from a given - and shoes with studs are a source of complete wonderment. 

The Foundation current plans for future projects include schools and sports teams in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Liberia. Zimbabwe and Kenya's crises are already well documented, but Liberia less so.  Help in Liberia is desperately needed due to the suffering in the aftermath of a four-year civil war, in which nearly 10% of the population was lost.

The larger NGOs and charities quite rightly focus on sustaining devastated communities with basic provisions upon which life depends – food, water and shelter. The Foundation seeks to do something much less critical, but nevertheless to provide a real boost to young people by providing sports equipment which is not otherwise a realistic possibility for the young people in these areas. Whilst the Foundation has only the resources to provide such opportunities to a limited number of people at present, the reaction to our initiatives confirms that even the smallest amount of help can make a big difference to the individual recipients

The smiles in the photos of the young people concerned tell a thousand stories.  £50 can be enough to provide football kit for another school team, so please give generously to enable the Jane Bubear Sports Foundation to extend its reach in 2009 and beyond.  For more information please visit www.janebubearsport.co.uk

I have been associated with Charterhouse in Southwark for many years.  It provides much needed assistance to agencies in Southwark - not even a training run away from the wealth of the City!

Please sponsor me now!