"It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

Thanks for coming to my JustGiving page. Hopefully it will all be nice and simple. Don't worry, because it's 100% secure, they don't give away your details (they swear), they give the money directly to Amnesty (who I'm going to tell you about further down the page . . .) and they reclaim Gift Aid on every eligible donation. So it's all good!

I have shaved off all of my long thick blond curly hair in aid of Amnesty International!!!!!!!

I can now confirm that I do not regret it, and it feels good! Although I do have a little mole at the back of my head.  Ah, well, I don't have to look at it.

But my stupid friend John filmed it and put it on youtube - and on the 26th it was the 12th most viewed non-profits and activism clip in Israel! i am so annoyed!!!

Amnesty International is a charity made up of 2.2 million ordinary people across the world that campaigns for human rights.

(You can check out the full Universal Declaration of Human Rights at http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/)

Amnesty tries to promote awareness of human rights, works directly with governments to encourage them to respect human rights and helps in individual human rights abuse cases. There are loads of things you can do to help - write letters, write emails, join amnesty, give a donation . . .

And it is incredibly worthwhile. Human rights are by definition owed to every single human being, and I feel very strongly that where people are denied their human rights, we should fight for them.

(I don't think I have really shown Amnesty justice. Amnesty explains it much better at http://www.amnesty.org/en/who-we-are/about-amnesty-international or at http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=74)

As (I think) Voltaire said: "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Big thanks to my orchestra for sponsoring me so well, to Gavin Harding for asking friends going to his leaving do to sponsor me, to those at Amnesty who have given me so much help, to the S6 Charity Committee for supporting me and helping me out with raising money, to Mr Robertson for being so supportive and to everyone else who has helped or sponsored me!