11 Weeks and Counting

We are down to 11 weeks and counting before I leave for Honduras and it's all starting to feel very real! It's becoming all I can think about while I'm pretty sure my mum is trying to avoid thinking about it too much!

One very important thing to report is that I have now reached the magic number, which for me is £5,000, and I am now in a position for the Realising Dreams Foundation to step in for the last £1,200. I have been sitting on about £4,600 ever since the Global Citizenship non-uniform day, just biding my time until my last scheduled bake sale. No sooner had I had my last official day at school than I was back, selling lots of delicious cakes, cookies and tray bakes at the S2 parent's evening. After selling leftovers at break the next day (honestly, that place can't get rid of me!) we made £301.05, taking me to the total of around £4,960. This took me by surprise a bit as I wasn't expecting to be so close to the end!

Celebrating after finishing my last bake sale of the year!

Some of you may remember that back towards the start of my fundraising, my Uncle Paul generously, selflessly and at great personal cost offered to give up one beer a week and put the money saved towards my year. As soon as I realised how close I was to my total, all it took was a quick phone call to cash in the last remaining bit that I needed from my uncle and there I was, all the way up at £5,000!

More exciting news to make next year real was getting my placement email. I was expecting it the last week of April. And then the first week in May. And then came the second week of May, still without an email though Project Trust promised it was coming! But they still made us wait until the end of the week!

Candelaria

It was absolutely worth the wait though! I have been placed in Candelaria, a remote town close to the Honduran border with El Salvador. Although a relatively poor town, there has been investment and the local council (municipal) has been active in improving infrastructure and providing opportunities. Candelaria is a new project that has only had volunteers since January this year and is a partnership scheme that involves the municipal, the local school and the parent's committee. They are very keen to have an English programme after seeing the benefits of Project Trust volunteers in the nearby town of Tomalá.

 

The volunteers this year have been teaching in the Kindergarten and primary school as well taking an adult evening class. There is scope to develop the timetable to include the secondary school, as demand for English lessons is high. The primary school has about 180 pupils and limited facilities. It caters for the town and children from the local aldeas. I will be able to set my own curriculum so will need to use my imagination and initiative to teach.

There are lots of practical things to be taken care of like vaccinations and disclosures now that I definitely know where I'm going and I'm now on the countdown to training back up on Coll and then to my departure! Not long now...!

Going Global in Newton Primary School

This is the story of how two Project Trust volunteers, one return and one future, and one powerpoint presentation brought Global Citizenship to the world (or at least one primary school in Scotland) and raised some funds in the process.

One of the fundamental values at Project Trust is Global Citizenship. It is imbued in every part of your experience with them, from a workshop during the selection week, to the qualification you work on throughout your year abroad and even to what you teach your classes during your year away. Then, once you have finally come home, one way you can continue to be involved with Project Trust is by becoming a Global Citizenship ambassador and going out to talk to schools.

Back in October, I decided that I wanted to try something like this with my old primary school but as a future PT volunteer rather than a returned one. I thought I could combine some workshops on Global Citizenship with a non-uniform day to raise some funds. The head teacher, Mrs McManus, was very open to and excited by the whole idea.

However, Global Citizenship is one of those terms that most people have a vague idea of what it means but find it really difficult to put into words and all I really knew was what I had learnt in the hour-long workshop when I was on Coll. It was clear. I needed help.  I emailed Heloise Allan, Head of Education at PT, and she put a call out to the Global Ambassadors in my area asking if anyone would be interested in helping me out. Step up Belle Yeung, a returned Honduras volunteer now studying at the University of Edinburgh.

After Christmas, it was suddenly full speed ahead. I wanted the day that we chose to be Global Citizenship themed, so we settled on the 5^th of February, linking it to UNICEF’s Day for Change. I liked the idea of a day where I could inspire people to think more globally and ask themselves what they can to help others.

Via e-mail, Belle and I identified 3 days prior to the non-uniform day that she could come out to Dunblane and help with the workshops. A week before our first one, I went into Edinburgh to finally meet up with her. I was buzzing with anticipation to meet someone who knows exactly what this experience is like and can understand exactly what I’m feeling, especially because we have Honduras in common. We spent about three hours forming a plan and nursing a coffee and then sat for another hour just talking about Project Trust and Honduras. Needless to say I now know all the best tips for Honduras, and all the must see places for during travel time!

Something very special about Project Trust is that, even if you don’t have anything else in common, you are guaranteed to get on with another volunteer. I think it’s to do with the kind of person you have to be to want to go to the other side of the world on your own for a whole year – there is something undeniably unique about that and when you find it in others, you instantly connect with it. 

I left Edinburgh ready to take on our first workshop the following Friday with P4s and 5s. My idea for tying in Global Citizenship with the non-uniform was for the kids to dress up like someone from their favourite country or in the colours of the flag. The P7s who had been helping me had run with this and assigned each year group a country that project Trust works in and they had to wear the corresponding colours of the flag, which I think was a fantastic idea! They also made posters to promote the day and put them up round school and we wrote and sent an e-mail to all the parents telling them about the non uniform day.

So finally all the planning was done, the prep was finished and all that was left was to actually run the workshops and have the non-uniform day!

Our first day of workshops was with the P4 and P5 classes - they were amazing! We tried to get the kids involved as much as possible by asking them lots of questions about what they saw happening in our photos, answering them as if we were the Honduran school children that Belle had taught. I had been a little concerned that some things might go a bit over their heads but, from the reaction we got, they understood the issues we were talking about and were interested by them.

 

On our second day, with the P1, P2 and P3 classes, we simplified the concept of Global Citizenship. We wanted to talk about the same ideas but in a way that they would be able to understand and relate to so we used pictures from Belle’s year in Honduras to illustrate the differences and similarities between a schoolchild in Scotland and in Honduras. They were all desperate to answer the questions we asked them about their lives here and then listened intently while we compared them with Honduras.

We finished the workshops with P6 and P7 on the morning of the non-uniform day. We used the same presentation as the P4s and 5s had and had very similar answers to our questions. However, the questions they asked at the end were based a lot more about what I would be doing during my year in Honduras. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to give them that much information because I don’t have my project details yet but I told them as much as I could and Belle was able to tell them more of her stories.

It was great to see all the classes thinking about everything they’d learnt and to hear what was most important to them. For some of them they hadn’t even known Honduras was a place, and for me, even just teaching them that fact, having widened their view of the world just a little, was worth all the effort of planning and running the workshops. A lot were surprised by the fact that for some children their only meal of the day was whilst they were at school. As for being a Global Citizens, they realise that it is all about looking after our planet, caring for other people and being aware and respectful of other cultures, religions and beliefs around the world. At the end of the day I feel we accomplished everything that we wanted to. I think everyone (even the teachers!) learnt something new through the workshops and we helped spread Project Trust’s message and ethos.

Being in on the morning of the non-uniform day was great because it meant that we could see the kids in all of the colours of their flags, and they all looked brilliant! I was especially impressed with P1 who had Swaziland (lots of nice bright primary colours for them in that one) and P7 who had Honduras (but then I might be a little biased there!).

The main aims of working with the Newton Primary was to spread awareness of Global Citizenship and raise some money for my year but I also hope that it has planted the seed in the minds of some of the older ones that Project trust is out there and is an option for their future.

You’ve probably noticed I keep saying ‘we’ and that’s because this really was a team effort. I want to give my biggest thanks to Belle because I honestly couldn’t have done this without her. ¡Gracias! I also want to say a big thank you to Mrs McManus, Mrs Kane and the We Count group at Newton Primary School for helping me organise everything. Thank you to Heloise at PT too for all her help, her emails checking how everything was going and for her enthusiasm. And finally I can’t finish without thanking all the pupils at Newton Primary who listened to us so well, participated brilliantly, brought in their pennies and who hopefully are going to take Global Citizenship with them through the rest of their lives.

This was an amazing experience for me. The funds I raised, an amazing £392.83, were a big incentive for this project but I got so much more out of it than that. It gave me an invaluable opportunity to meet someone who has been to Honduras, who knows how I am feeling about this whole experience and who shared her stories and advice with me. I have been completely caught up by the ethos and message that Project Trust wants to spread so hopefully I have inspired some future volunteers and others to think about the world and their place in it. I also got to talk about Honduras for hours on end, which anyone who knows me will tell you I am happy to do!

P1 - Swaziland

P2 - China

P3 - Malaysia

P4 - Dominican Republic

P5 - Ghana

P6 - India

P7 - Honduras

The Countdown is ON!

So long time no see! (Again.) It has been another month since my last post but I have still been accumulating news for you.

We have had two more bake sales at parent's evenings, one at S4 and one at S5/6. And I have a picture this time!

We went in not hoping for anywhere near what we got at the last one. But each time we have surprised and surpassed ourselves. At the S4 bake sale we raised £320.40 and then our most yet at the S5/6 with £328.40!!!! We still have one more to go but it's not for a while so I'll let you know how it goes.

I've also received more donations from family and friends and I am so grateful for the continued support. I would like to say a special thank you to my nanny and her friends who have been very generous and supportive. I also found out the other day that one her friends has a friend whose daughter has been away to Honduras. It's a small world!

As we all know it is Christmas is coming up and usually my mum and my nanny donate money to charity instead of sending Christmas cards. However this year 'charity starts at home', in the words of nanny and both of them have donated the money they would have given to charity to me instead!

Final update - Emma McRory, my mum's friend, has knitted ten woolly hats to sell for my cause, raising £110!

So overall this has taken me up to £4,246.73 (ish!)! So less than £800 left to go before the Realising Dreams Foundation steps in to help me with the last bit and with everything I have planned and left to do, I should have it all covered! I have one more bake sale, at the S2 parent's evening, which is hopefully another £300 (touch wood!) and I have still to include the money my uncle after giving up one pint of beer a week.

I am also in the process of organising a Global Citizenship themed non-uniform day at my old primary school. Global citizenship is a big part of what Project Trust advocates and is a key part of any volunteer's year abroad. Being a global citizen is all about having an awareness of the wider world and your place in it and wanting to make the world a more equal and sustainable place.

My plan is to run a series of workshops with P1-3, P4/5 and P6/7 with the help of Belle, a returned PT volunteer who went to Honduras last year. These will be done the week before the non-uniform day which is set for Friday 5th February, chosen not just because it's the day before the February holidays but also because it is the day before the UNICEF Day for Change - rather fitting, I thought! The idea is that on the day, the kids pay a pound to come dressed like someone from their favourite country - example, a surfer dude in a cork hat from Australia - or in the colours of the flag.

I am very excited to meet Belle and hear all about her time in Honduras. I'm going to apologise to her now for bombarding her with millions of questions but I'm very grateful that she is willing to take the time to come and help me with my fundraising.

On that note, this weekend I went in to Stirling to what PT call coffee catch ups, where you can meet other volunteers in the area and talk to a staff member or a returned volunteer. Unfortunately, because of the weather up on Coll, the ferry hasn't been able to get in so Laura wasn't able to come down and meet us. Instead my mum and I met Craig from Linlithgow who volunteered in Ghana and Nuala from Balfron who volunteered in India, both in 2012/13. We got there at the start and stayed for the full two hours. I think Craig was a bit overwhelmed by my constant chatter but I think that when Nuala arrived she understood my excitement a little bit more.

It was great to find out how their experiences were and get some insider tips, even if they weren't from the same country as me. I even got a very important question answered, one that has been weighing heavily on me since I was selected - how do I take a years worth of books to Honduras in a backpack? The simple answer, one that pains me to admit, is that I have to buy... a Kindle. That aside, it was a really helpful meeting and Nuala and Craig were great.

Unfortunately I only got to meet one other local volunteer but she's not going to be far away. Sacha is from Comrie and will be volunteering in the Dominican Republic for her year out. She was selected a few months after me so I was more than happy to share my successes (and failures) and it was fun to have someone to talk to about selection, ideas and how daunting fundraising is when you start.


So that's all for now. Expect things to be a bit quiet on the fundraising front for a while, the next event being the non-uniform day in February. In the meantime, I wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy new year! Thank you for all of your incredible support this year, I can't quite believe it, and hopefully it can continue into the new year to help me reach my target.

And just think, this time next year, I'll be celebrating on a beach on the Caribbean coast. Try not to be too jealous!

WOOHOO!!! Celebrating smashing £4000 on top of 3G hill on Coll

Where do I begin?

It feels like ages since I've updated  on here which I'm sorry about but it's only actually been a month! But it's been a very busy month!

I'll start off with my not so good news from October. So as you all know I was planning a Halloween party for the end of the month but due to poor ticket sales we were forced to cancel it, even after several attempts at rescuing it. It was unfortunate and a big disappointment but, hey, it's not the end of the world.

In the meantime, on to more positive things. Since my last post where I talked about the Realising Dreams Foundation, I have received two more donations from charitable trusts. My local rotary club of Bridge of Allan and Dunblane have given me a grant of £200 and I also received a cheque for £300 from the Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust.

A few other little things to wrap up from this month. Another £22.50 from nanny's mug mat sales, £120 in donations and the £20 winnings from the Rugby World Cup, won by New Zealand and Ed Payne, which was kindly given back to me.

And now onto the good stuff!! I had my first bake sale, at the S1 parent's evening, (no picture I'm afraid, which was a bit of an oversight but I'll get a photo at the next one to show you the spread!). It went spectacularly well and we raised £301.94! It was a great start so now we just need to keep that up for the rest of them!

Finally, my most recent and most successful event so far has been a raffle on the handmade quilt that we tried to sell back in August. That didn't really work but this time we were selling tickets for £5 each, the money could be donated on my Virgin Money Giving page. It ran for around two and a half weeks and finished on Thursday 5th November. Congratulations to Karen Monaghan - the quilt will be winging it's way to you in Boston very shortly! And a big thank you to everyone that bought tickets and raised £950!!! This will pay for an amazing two months in Honduras.

So overall, progress-wise, since my last post I have smashed both the target of £2,000 and £3,000 and am sitting at £3,051.22! So have some pictures to celebrate seeing as I don't have one of the bake sale.

A picture painted by one of the girls from my selection course after getting home from Coll

The girls at the ceilidh on the last night of select

One Massive Step Closer To Realising My Dreams

A few little things have added more money to the pot since my last post but with some big new coming at the end!

First off, a big thank you to my neighbour Irene Bruce who sold some homemade tablet in the staffroom at school and raised £16 for me. Also a big thank you to my nanny and some of her friends for £25 - nanny has been selling mug mats for me at home in Northern Ireland. Finally, I organised a last minute Rugby World Cup sweepstake that pulled in £40 with a £20 cash prize waiting for whoever drew the eventual winners. Every little helps, as they say!

I have also spent the last few weeks creating a fundraising leaflet and writing letters to send out to charitable trusts. The range of trust available to me is fairly limited mostly because most will not give to individual fundraisers and there are not that many that operate inside Scotland but the handful that I have seem to be well suited to what I am doing. I will post my letters once my leaflet is printed and I am incredibly grateful to the Realising Dreams Foundation who have offered to do this for me.

The Realising Dreams Foundation aims to support individual children and young people (aged 5 to 21 years old) with a talent, drive and ambition who haven’t been able to realise their dreams because of a lack of funding or support from other charities.

However, there's even better news to come from the Realising Dreams Foundation. As well as agreeing to print my leaflet for me and promote my blog on their website, they have promised that if I reach a target of £5,000 they will pay for the remaining £1,200!!! This a massive step towards Honduras and I am so grateful for their support.
 

My First Milestone

Quite a lot of news, but the first bit is that we did it! I have officially hit the £1000 milestone, with a running total of £1055! I have received a steady stream of donations since I got home from Costa Rica as well as having a couple of fundraising events.

To start with I would like to say thank you to the donors from my Virgin Money Giving page, Randal McDowell and Fiona Steen. Another big thank you to Rich Lambert for the cheque I received in the post, which makes these donations £120 overall!

My first official fundraising event took place on Sunday 30th August and was a Costa Rica coffee morning. I absolutely loved it because I literally got to talk about my trip for hours! There was cake, Tesco's Finest Costa Rican coffee and many, many photos and everyone from my friends, my parent's friends, teachers and even some long lost friends came for a chat.

It was great to see everyone who came and to all those who couldn't make but still donated, a huge thank you! (There's going to be a lot of that in this post!) Between the cakes, some crafty things we were selling and the absentee donations we raised £385.70! I had a great time and I hope I didn't bore too many people with my stories!

Next up was a sly game of Guess the Number of Sweets in the Jar in my school library for all the S6's, sly because I'm not 'technically' allowed to do any fundraising in school. I went around at break and lunch selling guesses for 50p or 3 for £1 and raised £60. Congratulations to Eve Colgan, the winner with the closest guess of 272.


I'm now onto creating my leaflet and finishing my trust research in preparation for writing to them, hopefully by the end of September. I'm also gearing up for my Halloween party at the end of October with the most difficult decision being... what should my costume be???

Outside of fundraising, I met up with a group of people from my selection course at the Glasgow uni open day. It was really nice to see them all again and hear about how all their fundraising is going. I have also been talking to Ellie Crozier, a girl from the year above me who is ready and waiting to go to South Africa with Project Trust as soon as her visa comes through. Just talking to her makes me even more excited for when it will be my turn. I wish her all the best for when she finally gets there and can't wait to see her pictures and hear her stories!

I can't say it enough so I'll say it again - thank you to everyone who has donated so far and keep watching here and on my Facebook page for more updates. 

Costa Rica, Coffee Mornings and Count the Sweets

I'm back! Did you miss me? It's been a while since I've given any updates on my progress, I know, but I've been away having incredible adventures in Costa Rica! For those of you that are interested I'll tell you a bit about my four amazing weeks there. If you're just here to see my fundraising news, skip to the end to find out what's going on.

During my summer holidays I spent a month in Costa Rica, a Central American country separated from Honduras by Nicaragua, with a volunteering organisation called GVI. The first week was cultural immersion with eight other teenagers from all around the world - we had Americans, Canadians, more Brits and even a Swiss boy. Cultural immersion meant four hours of Spanish lessons a day, salsa class and cooking class and staying with a host family for a week.

This was one of my favourite parts of my whole trip. Staying with the host family improved my Spanish more than the lessons did because my family didn't speak much English so it was up to me to make conversation and pass along information in Spanish. My tican family (tico is a term Costa Ricans use to refer to themselves) were absolutely amazing and I loved spending a whole week as part of their family, with an American girl from my group and two other American students they had staying with them. It was a very busy house!

My tica parents and roommate Kelly

After spending a week in Quepos with our host families, we moved to a hostel in the neighbouring hillside town of Manuel Antonio where we were joined by another eight volunteers. The next two weeks were spent doing construction work at a school in a community called Roncador. It was hard work under a hot sun but we got through a massive amount of work, more than anyone expected. We dug drains to stop the playground flooding, cleared, levelled and landscaped an area behind the kindergarten classroom for a new playground for the kindergarten kids, wirebrushed and painted tin panels for a new roof for the GVI English classroom, filled in the holes in the wall with cement and gave the lunch hall, kindergarten classroom, outside wall and English classroom all a fresh coat of paint!

The playground we made for the kindergarten children

 One day we got to have a sports day with the kids, and while we'd seen them in their lessons and running around during their breaks this was the first time we got to interact with them. They practised their English on us and we practised our Spanish on them, and we got to really meet the people that we were doing all this work for. It reminded us all why we were there, where all our sweat and effort was actually going.

The English classroom as we left it - complete with GVI mural!

They day we left the project for the last time after two weeks there was a sad one and I think part of us wished we could stay for another week and do more. I am so proud of what we achieved throughout those two weeks and I know that the difference we have made will have a very real impact on the kids. It gives them a safer, cleaner, nicer learning environment to learn in and be proud of.

After two weeks of hard work we moved into our adventure week! We started with a trip to the Manuel Antonio National Park where we saw everything from monkeys and baby boa constrictors to spiders, lizards and crabs climbing trees and even a sloth! The next day we took to the beach where I learnt that surfing is just as hard as it looks (which is hard!) but about a hundred times more fun!

On the Monday of our last week we left the Quepos-Manuel Antonio area which had been my home for the last three weeks and drove across to the other side of Costa Rica to Turrialba. For our next adventure we went ziplining and abseiling in the rainforest before embarking on a rafting trip down the Rio Pacuare, one of the best rivers in the world for rafting. We spent two days navigating down class III and IV rapids and on the day in between we hiked to an indigenous village.

When it was time to leave Costa Rica, I was heartbroken. It is such a beautiful country, from the stunning landscape to the warm, welcoming people. Costa Rica will always be very special to me, as my first proper experience of travelling, as will the global friendships that I formed there. For now all I will say is pura vida Costa Rica, and you never know, I might make it down to see you while I'm in Honduras!

Now I am back in Scotland and back at school and it's time to start fundraising again! This week in school I'm running a 'Guess the Number of Sweets on the Jar' at school and on Sunday morning I'm hosting a coffee morning at my house to share my stories and photos from Costa Rica.

Costa Rica felt like a mini version of what it will be like in Honduras and it has made the excitement real and given me something solid to look forward to. I can't wait to get further into my fundraising and closer to my year on Honduras!