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Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

I'm raising money for a charity which is very dear to my heart. The Bouncing Ball Trust. The Bouncing Ball Trust is an grassroots organisation which is run by a very small but dedicated group of volunteers located in Scotland, England and Kenya.

My charitable ties to Kenya begin over a decade ago when I was a member of the 56th Edinburgh Boys' Brigade Company. It falls into 3 phases.

During my time with the 56th we helped raise funds for two charitable causes - Project Steadfast (named for the motto of the Boys' Brigade - 'Steadfast and Sure' as in the hymn:-

"We have an Anchor which keeps the Soul,

Steadfast and Sure while the billows roll,

Fastened to The Rock which cannot move,

Grounded firm and deep in The Saviour's Love!"

And Project Harambee named for the Swahili word for Unity and Community and speaking to the collective consciousness which binds Kenyan society together and us all on this planet in the Scottish Spirit of 'The Common Weal.'

Project Steadfast was something we were involved in raising money for over around 5 years or so.

And in that time we helped build, paint, furnish and permanently Staff a Disabled Centre, Teacher's Sleeping Area, Additional Classrooms and a New Roof for the entire school of the PCEA Oloolua School for Children which is located in the rural area of Oloolua outside of Nairobi the capital city of Kenya. The Disabled Centre for disabled students to be able to attend the school and be night boarders was named The St. Andrew's Centre for Disabled Education in honour of the Patron Saint of Scotland -Saint Andrew.

It is still benefitting the children and disabled students of the area up to the age of 25 to this day.

Once we had completed these many years of fundraising there were difficult questions about the direction in which we collectively (being comprised mostly of members of the 56th Edinburgh, 1st Loanhead and 5th Livingston BB' Companies) wished to continue to focus our fundraising efforts in Kenya.

After much discussion and after nearly six years of working together we made the difficult decision to pursue different aims independently from here on out but part as friends in recognition of all the work we'd done together to help the communities there.

The second phase we in the 56th began a project that was called Project Harambee. Project Harambee was to be more grassroots and more direct action. But it would be smaller as we were but one small company of but twelve boys and their collective families and friends and parish communities.

We felt the struggle of the transition keenly but we persevered. And over the next years we succeeded in helping the community of one of the poorest slums on the outskirts of Nairobi.

In the town of N'gong in N'gong Hills which is about 75km South West of Nairobi.

We were helping an existing school which our project leader had been made aware of which served the poorest and neediest community in one of the worse slums surrounding the town of Ngong up on the Hillside.

This was called The Hilltop Academy.

There we instituted a food programme where we gave the children one hot meal and tea in the morning to keep them warm and fed and healthy. And to allow them to stay awake during the whole day of lessons under the scorching 34°C Kenyan Sun.

We helped them build a Shamba (a farm) and employed a Guardian to look after it. We built a farmhouse, chicken coop and goat shed and we had several hundred chickens and four goats on the land from which to produce an income for the community through selling the eggs and goats milk.

We also helped arrange for the paperwork and permission for a fresh water well to be dug on the shamba to allow for easy irrigation and to supply the neighbouring fields and families with water during the many summer droughts which rocked the country.

We had a Sponsor a Brick programme where each person could sponsor an individual brick in the building of the farm.

It was a great success and now many years later the money we raised and the shamba allow for the Hilltop Academy to continue the feeding programme and run school classes six days a week from morning until night with several teachers on the premises safely and self-sustainably. It is still going strong to this day serving that very worthy community.

And then now this was self-sustaining we entered Phase 3 - The Bouncing Ball Trust.

This was our third Charitable Organisation that I helped with the establishment and fundraising for.

The Bouncing Ball Trust is located in a very different part of the country. It is a much much more remote area nearer the desert and the mountains.

The Bouncing Ball Trust for the past several years has managed to fundraise to complete work on the

Olkeju Bulati Primary School Development Project

Including a toilet block, kitchen, permanent roofed and water tight classrooms and a school office.

Once we had served the youngest teaching needs in the area we wished to help with a cause that was becoming increasingly more pressing.

Increasing awareness and safety for the young girls and women of the community.

This initiative started with ending period poverty and localised practices of female genital mutilation and helping provide a refuge for women whom had been sexually assaulted or abused or abandoned by their families following the many years of continuous drought and famine in Kenya.

Kenya was also hit with two earthquakes in one year.

And then two more several years later.

And during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic Kenya had a queue that holds the world record for the longest queue for clean drinking water in the world it was over 150 kilometres long!

And With five consecutive failed rainy seasons leading to the worst drought in 40 years, tens of millions are facing food insecurity across Eastern Africa.

This is a direct result of Western climate change caused by the industrialised Global North.

In this climate many families have been displayed and lost access to arable land to grow crops, sources of fresh water for their animals and families and had to move in some cases thousands of kilometres or even to neighbouring countries to seek emergency medical aid and shelter.

The Bouncing Ball Trust currently operates primarily Esilalei in Kajiado County, Kenya serving that wider community there.

More recently we have successfully helped secure workers to build the women and girls of the community a refuge from which to offer women's medical aid, community advice around period products; good menstrual hygiene to end the unnecessary lives lost to Toxic Shock Syndrome and associated infections; to increase understanding of personal advocacy for the women to advocate for their own right to access to impartial sexual health and advice services and medical care for them and their children and families as necessary.

In the last year we have managed to complete work on the community centre and the community rejoiced with is with us with several days of singing and dancing and music as we had managed to get the roof sealed and watertight and the walls waterproofed and doors installed before the rainy season began and made the land more unstable through soil erosion, mud slides, flash floods and desertification.

The Bouncing Ball Trust offers a Sponsor a Child programme which I would strongly encourage those whom are able to consider.

And for those whom are not looking to make a larger commitment I would humbly ask that you consider donating to my Go Fund Me Page for the Charity.

It's a cause I've given years of my life to at this point and one that I have no intentions of abandoning now I enter my Third Decade on this Earth.

Please give generously and deeply as well as you are able.

And please share this on social media and locally as you can.

Thank you and God bless you.

Asante sana!