Catie's Tanzania fundraising

Hi - I’m Catie, a 17 year old student from Bishop Luffa Sixth Form. This summer I am lucky enough to have been selected to travel with my school and the charity GrassRoots to Tanzania, to volunteer in the local community of Mbeya, a tiny village near the border with Zambia. In Mbeya I will be helping to feed local children their one weekly meal and supporting their educational needs in the classroom. Many of the children live and sleep in very difficult circumstances without furniture and I will be building bunk beds and providing mattresses which will sleep 3-4 children each. I will be taking lots of supplies for the children such as blankets, pencils and notebooks for school.

This is such a fantastic opportunity for me to help those in need and a valuable experience which I think will shape and quite possibly change my life. I am so excited to learn more about Tanzanian culture and am looking forward to experiencing what school life is like for the children there and even getting the chance to teach a lesson myself!

I have to raise my own funds to go to Tanzania and have a target to raise £3,000 by June. This includes travel, accommodation and additional costs such as the necessary vaccinations and supplies for the people of Mbeya. I would love to raise as much money as possible in order to donate more money directly to the charity themselves, giving more children the chance to go to school and have at least one full meal per week.

The charity GrassRoots run child sponsorship programmes in Tanzania, with 100% of the donations being spent on the children. You can find information on the charity and their work in Tanzania here. Please watch the incredible video which shows some of the amazing work they do out in Tanzania.