Hopping and hoping to change the world

Hopping and hoping to change the world

Like everyone, I have a story to tell but before I let you in, I want to assure you that my funding page is not all about me. Yes, I want to travel and I want to explore but I also want this to be an opportunity, with your help, to give a little back as well. In order to achieve my personal travel goals,

I need to raise funds but for every penny I raise I will give back 10% to help people on my journey. If I exceed my set target and continue to receive funds, this will enable me to travel further but on everything donated that is in excess of my target I will give back 25% to fund people and projects on my travels. Where I am going, these relatively small amounts of ‘giving back money’ will go a long way to enrich the lives of others. Whether it is to buy food for a poor family, books for school children or to simply give alms to a stranger that needs help along the way, I vow to help. It is amazing how one act of kindness can change someone’s world. I spent years in a very abusive relationship, and in 2005 after ten years of being controlled and treated as though I were nothing, I literally escaped. I was 27 years old when I finally got away but my abusive partner tracked me down and because he could no longer have me, he shot me at close range with a shotgun, it was a belly wound but resulted in me losing half of my intestine and having my left leg completely amputated due the bleeding, my leg was literally dying on me, it was the only way to save my life, before all my major organs shut down. The man that shot me was arrested and convicted but he had left me with a life changing condition and nothing would ever be the same. I still have pellets inside my body that cause pain and infection on a regular basis, I am never free from the reminder of what was done to me. I overcame such huge obstacles when I woke up and decided that this was not going to be my end, instead it would be a new beginning. I learned to drive, went back to work and had an amazing career with some incredibly supportive companies, but I harboured a dream. I wanted to travel and see the world, you see, none of us knows how much time we have and every day we wake up is in itself a blessing. In 2015, with some savings and adventure in mind I quit my job and was ready to travel the word commencing with a trip to the Philippines. Unfortunately, due to the pellets in my system I was hospitalised again due to serious infection and when I finally did make it to my far away destination, I fell ill again. I had to use my savings for medication and treatment so that I could live but my dreams of travel remain with me. Whilst there and after treatment I still managed to help fund a young team of very poor children through schooling, kitted out their basketball team, for which I am very proud, I still work with them as much as I am able. I am, right now, already in Asia having arrived just a few days ago, I am travelling with limited funds and I am literally planning to ‘hop’ around the world but I can only do that with your help. I will provide regular updates, photographs and stories along the way and more importantly, together, we could change the world through random acts of kindness. Seeing a child playing in the streets of a slum neighbourhood, playing with a stick and a crushed tin, he imagines he is a baseball player, for just a few pennies, gifting that child a plastic bat and ball and who knows what that child might one day become. Buying a bag of rice for a family that is hungry and asking them to share with a neighbour that needs their help could help to create new communities. Providing notebooks and pencils to young children who are being educated in ramshackle schools could be the start of something big. By helping me to hop around the world, we could help change a little of the world together. Please give what you can, become involved in my adventure, share the joy with me and help me to prove that any one of us can overcome adversary and what ever is thrown in our way. Please share for me on social media, tell people about me, and ask them to help me fulfil my dreams and the dreams of others. Please give as little or as much as you can afford and become part of my story.