Our names are John Elsey, Joanne Chiappinelli and Antony Chiappinelli and we have just finalised a trip to Tanzania to attempt to summit Mount Kilimanjaro and raise money for my chosen charity ‘Camkids’. I have chosen this charity based on my new found love and appreciation of the Cambodian people and their ongoing struggle to rebuild their lives after decades of genocide and poverty. After traveling through Cambodia last year and having visited various historic sites including the ‘Killing Fields’ we feel that that we had learnt so much about the peoples tragic history. Whilst in Cambodia Joanne and I visited an orphanage for the day and spent a good deal of time with the children, whilst there we learnt about the lost generation and the inhuman acts of Pol Pott and the Khmer Rouge against their very own people. A large percentage of the country are now under the age of eighteen, with a further large percentage maybe even as high as 80% now being orphans. These are the unfortunate children who’s parents just do not care or even cannot cope, but in many cases there is just not enough food to go around so it’s a case of ‘someone has to go’ and this usually results in the small children being abandoned at the end of the road.

Having returned home in January of this year we promised ourselves that we would at some point raise some money to donate to an orphanage in Cambodia. Too often people arrive home with good intentions but then having settled back into their hectic lifestyle’s the good intentions do not come to fruition...myself included. However this time WILL be different, we must follow through what our hearts felt back in October 2008 whilst visiting an orphanage just outside Siem Reap (Cambodia).

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.