Children of Lisa Finlay Primary School in Ghana

I am attempting to raise money for a wonderful primary school that I volunteered at many years ago. Since I visited this school back in 2014, I have stayed in touch with the headteacher, Samuel, who I frequently send money to across the year. This supports families to pay for child's tuition fees (£6 per term), water filters, food, exercise books and supplies to maintain the school grounds.

Unfortunately, access to simple things like filtered water, continues to be very tough for most. For many children, it would require travelling a few kilometres to reach their local stream/well in order to access water (around 5 litres at a time). The average daily water usage per person per household in the UK is a staggering 145 litres. This would mean a child from the school would have to travel 120km in order to gather the same amount of water as one person would use in a single day from the UK.

This December, I plan to take on a '12 days of Christmas' challenge, where I will be running 120km across 12 consecutive days, while carrying 5L of water, emulating what a child would have to do from Lisa Finlay Primary School. My first run will commence on 13th December and my final run will be on Christmas Eve. 100% of donations will go towards tuition fees, the implementation of a new school block, tables and chairs.

The reason this is so important to me, is because my volunteer trip taught me a valuable lesson many years ago. And that was that joy can come from the smallest of things - playing with rocks, receiving an exercise book and simply being able to go to school. Many of these things, particularly the usage of water, the western world take for granted. Despite this, the children from Lisa Finlay smile, laugh and enjoy everyday to the fullest.

Thank you so much for reading this and supporting me. If you can donate even just a few pounds, I would be extremely grateful.

Elliott x