My 58th year has been my worst ever: Covid, Shingles, infected nerves in my face as well as infected kidneys and liver. I'm pleased to say that, since having my gall bladder removed in April, I have been steadily improving and want to do something significant in advance of my 59th birthday (7th August 2024) to maintain my healthy trajectory and raise much needed funds for the amazing charity that has been my passion for 24 years, @Act4Africa. To that end, the challenge I have set myself is to swim the distance of the London Marathon (26.2 miles) between now and 7th August. In terms of lengths in my local 25 metre pool, that's 1686 LENGTHS! (400 lengths further than I swam to help to feed vulnerable mums and their babies in Uganda during Covid).

As many of you know, Act4Africa works to reduce poverty and transform the lives of vulnerable girls and women through our Strong Mothers Programme and our HEAL (health, education, agriculture and livelihood) programme in Uganda. Act4Africa supports teenage mums have no one else to turn to, some of them as young as 13. Many of them have been rejected by their families and even their communities when they become pregnant, often through rape and coercion.

Our Strong Mothers Programme provides these girls with counselling and life skills, vocational and leadership skills and helps them to set up micro- businesses so that they can feed their children and afford to put them through school, which is not free in Uganda. We also provide excellent free education through Kathy's Kindergarten which is renowned for providing the best pre-school education in the region. The charity's vision is:

We need to find the funding to run another Strong Mothers Programme in Mayuge district, one of the poorest in Uganda. We will launch it in September 2024. The cost of a year long programme, including counselling, life skills and vocational training, materials for the jewellery making, hairdressing, clothes making, sewing machines and seed funding for 100 girls is £25,000. My personal target is to raise £10,000 of that.

If you can help by making a donation - of whatever size, every penny will count. Please don't send me a birthday card or give me a gift, just make a donation here to support some of the most amazing girls and young women that I have ever met and give them a chance of a better future.

Thank-you so much for your incredible generosity. Whether or not I reach my target of £10,000, your donation will be my best birthday present ever!

Thank-you!