Hi all!

Thank you for visiting my fundraising page. I am running in the Royal Parks Half Marathon on the 8 October for Shivia. I am aiming to raise £500, but it would be amazing to smash that and see how much we can raise! I will be incredibly grateful for all donations received.

You may not have heard of Shivia before. They empower the poorest to create livelihoods, boost income and inspire permanent change. The focus of their work is in rural West Bengal, one of India’s poorest and most populous states, where they are giving families living in rural villages near Kolkata the tools and training to start an enterprise from home so that they can earn money. They empower the people in most need, and particularly women, to work their own way out of poverty and provide a brighter future for their children.

One of the most inspiring and inspirational of Shivia's projects is their Poultry Development Services (PDS) programme. Shivia provides women with poultry toolkits and trains them to start their own business with chickens and eggs. This allows them to sustain and improve their own livelihood as well as that of their children and wider family. The PDS programme also empowers women in a region where they may be excluded from opportunities to earn money due to cultural prejudices, poor education and lack of job prospects. 

Just £15 can supply a poultry toolkit to a woman and her family. 

For more information on this programme, and Shivia in general, check out their website:

https://shivia.com/

https://shivia.com/programmes/poultry-development-services

I will more than happily talk to anyone interested in Shivia's work or (less likely) my own fitness progress.