Good Causes 2

Dear all

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an update on good causes by friends who doing different activities to raise money for, well, good causes. There were a couple I didn’t get a chance to include in the last update. I am doing this, however, almost as an act of karma, after so many people helped me raise money to come to Honduras a couple of years ago. I will start with Kayleigh McGinn.

Kayleigh McGinn

I have known her for a couple of years and is my cousin’s former partner. She hails from Glasgow and we always had a good laugh, putting a friendly arm around me at my brother’s wedding after I misplaced his wedding ring (I was the best man), and I will always remember receiving a can of Tennants for Christmas from her, after a year away in Honduras. Very straight to point and a fan of the odd swear word, she’s going to be doing the challenge of a lifetime. Like my friend Joe, she is going to be climbing Kilimanjaro at some point this year, although I’m not too sure when. She is raising money for Concern Worldwide. It is a huge challenge for anyone, but I am really pleased she is doing it. The sense of accomplishment will open more and more doors for her. I must admit, I don’t know too much about the charity, but here is a snippet about them:

“Concern Worldwide works with the world’s poorest people to transform their lives.

We are an international humanitarian organisation dedicated to tackling poverty and suffering in the world’s poorest countries.

We work in partnership with the very poorest people in these countries, directly enabling them to improve their lives, as well as using our knowledge and experience to influence decisions made at a local, national and international level that can significantly reduce extreme poverty.” 

Taken from https://www.concern.net/

Please visit her Justgiving site, which is: http://www.justgiving.com/Kayleigh-McGinn

 

Kris McGee

Kris has featured in my blog before. In fact, I am sure I can go back and find pictures of her. Yes, I think I am going to include one now!

If you have followed my blog long enough, just under two years ago, I went to help paint a school in the small town of Pespire in Southern Honduras with the Canadian Girl Guides, of which Kris was a Guide leader. Above is a photo of her as she was about to leave the beautiful little town, and she is with her lovely host family, Los Nietos. I haven’t been able to stay in touch with the people of the town as much as I would have liked. I loved my week or so there, and it gave me a brief, educative insight of rural town life in Honduras (other than my time in Tatumbla). It made me reflect a lot seeing this nice side of this country, away from the insecurity and crime of the cities. Below is a picture of the gang, outside of the school they painted. They were great fun. I hope they look back at their Pespire adventure with as much fondness as myself.

Back in Canada, Kris is a school teacher in Kitchener. She is a larger than life personality, very funny, and a good sparring partner to make fun of. She puts much of her time into the Guide movement, taking people away on trips to random parts of the world and being life and soul of the party. I remember how she motivated the troops of scorching days, sacrificed massive amounts of her own energy, money and belongings to make sure other people enjoyed themselves and took as much as they could away from the experience. I enjoyed our many funny conversations during those two weeks together. A good friend, and I promise that one day, when I have money, I will fly up to visit her up there where polar bears roam and kill children, and where orcas float around murder defenseless baby seals. All slightly exaggerated, but I promise to go and somehow sabotage Roger Federer’s game (to give Murray a chance winning at least a set).

Kris has decided to do another great cause in her life by doing a run. I don’t know how far, I don’t know where, nor do I know when, but she is doing it to raise money for United Ways Centraides, a charity which is trying to tackle poverty in Canada. I’ll be quite honest, I do not know too much about the charity like above, but I thought I would include another snippet.

“Our mission is to improve lives and build community by engaging individuals and mobilizing collective action. We call this our community impact mission.

Community Impact

Community impact is about achieving meaningful, long-term improvements to the quality of life in Canadian communities, by addressing not just the symptoms of problems but also getting at the root causes. It’s about making fundamental changes to community conditions.

All United Way Centraides are working together for real change to happen. We do this by:

• Influencing public attitudes, systems and policies
• Focusing on underlying causes of social issues
• Strengthening the network of services and the capacity of non-profits and the community
• Engaging and mobilizing the community’s financial resources, influence, time, knowledge and action”

To see more, visit http://www.unitedway.ca/. Also, to donate money to Kris, you can visit: https://raceroster.com/pledge/?e=245&u=17547

Please spare whatever you can.

I will be including a couple more good causes soon.

Now to include something completely different that I saw on Facebook, a short video protesting the deportation of Latin American migrants in the USA.

http://www.upworthy.com/you-dont-need-to-speak-a-foreign-language-to-understand-how-insane-this-is?c=bl3

 

Good causes

Dear all

Happy Easter to all! No doubt you’re scoffing yourselves with Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns, or from what I hear from the UK weather, have been sledging to work and fighting off polar bears in what should be spring time.

For myself, it’s been nice to relax after recent stressful times, with visits to Comayagua and bank clubs, eating fresh fish, eating cheese with chilis, chicharrones (or however it’s spelt, but it’s delicious great lumps of pork meat, with fat. Think “huge pork scratchings) and chilling out with Mariela and Nacho, and Pam’s family. Unfortunately I have a scolding sunburn, thanks to Tuesday’s scolding sun (which I applied lots of sun-cream), and it’s screamingly painful and it makes passers-by laugh and throw rocks at me. Okay, they don’t throw rocks but they do laugh and say stuff like “stupid chele”. My pride and skin hurts. But nonetheless, I am preparing myself for another good all crack at the job hunt next week.

I remember back three years ago, pretty much this exact time about 2010, when I decided that I would be going to Honduras, courtesy of ICYE, and I had to raise a whopping £4, 500. There was a lot of hard work, not just from myself, but by my family, friends, colleagues, neighbours, friends of friends, and all their generosity were the first sure steps that lead me to be sitting in this fancy seat, in this fancy apartment, in this beautiful country, all that time ago. They helped me in kind donations or helped organise events. Many of people who read this blog I know donated some time and effort to help me. It’s not forgotten, and while I cannot repay everyone back individually, I would like to promote other people’s good (and hard) work for great causes, so they can possibly get sponsorship money. I did it a year or so ago for a number of friends who were running marathons and climbing mountains, so I have decided to do it again.

 

Jordan Kenny

He has been one of my best mates throughout my years at University of Central Lancashire and of course after. I remember frying up bacon sarnies for him those years back on cold mornings on good old Norris Street in Preston, or getting drunk with him on student nights. He is now cutting back on the pork life (or maybe he isn’t!) and he’s going to run a half marathon (or a full marathon, I can’t quite remember) to raise money for a local charity in his hometown, Manchester, called Reclaim. I must admit, I do not know too much about the charity, although having a brief read on the website, it helps disadvantaged youths in the Manchester area with self-confidence, raise-awareness of the problems marginalised groups and youths face in modern British society. It does do a lot more, and I hope I do not get done for plagiarism for copying and pasting their aims, but you can find them from the following website: http://www.reclaimproject.org.uk/.

AIMS

• To provide young people with positive leadership opportunities to make a difference in their area
• To raise levels of self-esteem, aspiration and self belief in young people
• RECLAIM gives young people the opportunity to reach and communicate with the adults in position of power both locally and nationally
• Allows young people to know they are in control of their own decisions and destiny
• Allowing young people to challenge negative stereotypes of themselves and their communities and fight the demonisation of young people in British society
• Reinvigorating a spirit of volunteering and support for young people
• We want to provide a safe and supportive network of caring adults.

I don’t know if the organisation is facing financial issues from the recent cuts (I have read on Guardian website that youth centres are feeling the brunt of recent cuts), but knowing Jordan well and is good judgement, this charity is doing a grand job at helping disadvantaged youths. I am especially fond of this work, having worked with street kids in Honduras. I know what challenging work it can be, the negative stereotypes that have to be changed and difficulties of finding funds in lean times to keep projects running. I really hope that you can sponsor my good friend. Here is a link to Jordan’s Justgiving site. Any money you can give would much appreciated.  http://www.justgiving.com/JordanKenny/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=fundraisingpage&utm_content=JordanKenny&utm_campaign=pfp-tweet

 

Joe Newell

Joe, who used to live in Kings Heath in Brum with a charismatic Catalan called Francisco Campoy, is going to be climbing Kilimanjaro to raise money for Marie Curie. He’s been a good mate for a few years now, works in television and once accompanied us on a trip to Cornwall where I tried to eat as much as I could in a weekend. Pasties, clotted cream, fish and chips, Pringles, sausage rolls, chocolate, Cider, fruit, cake. It was grotesque to watch but brilliant for me. I had a hole to fill. Enough about me. He is a great guy, who is going way, way, way out of his way to raise money for a charity that does so much for cancer victims, and supports those who are incurable. He has just a couple of days to raise the money, so if you could please put some money on to his Justgiving site, I am sure it would be much appreciated. https://www.justgiving.com/Joe-Newell/

There is someone else I know who is climbing Kilimanjaro but I need to research a bit more about the charity she is doing it for. As it is 1am, I feel sunburned and my face looks like a tomato, I am going to do it in the next couple of days.

I am going to leave you, a bit randomly, with the ten great goals by Matthew Le Tissier, the former Southampton superstar. If you are not aware of this man, ignore his crooked teeth and fringe, his goals were out of this world. While England was fussing over Gazza’s tears and madness, this man was scoring goals for fun and never really had a look in. The oversight is understated. Criminal. He had a bit of Zidane and Cantona to his game, but England kept picking Darren Anderton. That’s why we can’t beat teams like Montenegro or Algeria. When we have a player with a bit of class, we have no idea how to play him. I have been talking to my housemate Nacho about him. Recently Xavi Hernandez declared Le Tissier was one of his football heroes. This is for Nacho, and Xavi (though Nacho doesn’t like Xavi! (Nacho is 100% Real Madrid)). Enjoy!