2016 London Marathon – Think Pacific

Next summer I will be spending 3 months volunteering in a remote area of the Fiji Islands. I will be working in some of the poorest primary schools in the region, in areas where over three quarters of children live below the poverty line.

My role is to lead basic youth and sports classes, which have been designed in partnership with a local charity and the Fijian Ministry of Education to increase children’s reading and writing skills and enable them to take part in structured sports and extracurricular activities.

I will be paying all my own food, accommodation and also my flight costs to get to Fiji and take part in the project.

However, on top of this I am trying to raise a further £600.

This funding will be donated to charity to provide extra support to children living in poverty across Fiji. 100% of the money raised will go to the Think Pacific Foundation, who work year round to create sustainable solutions to tackling the root causes of poverty issues in Fiji.

The charity provides basic educational and sports materials, ensures children can attend education programmes, enables children to access health care, provides training for local teachers, and achieves infrastructure projects to improve basic facilities for schools and remote villages.

You may also have seen in the news recently, that large parts of Fiji were devastated by Tropical Cyclone Winston. This was the strongest cyclone ever recorded in the southern hemisphere and the current death toll stands at 29. Even this does not reflect the large scale damage that was done by the cyclone, which caused approximately 80% of the nation to lose power.

Think Pacific are also working incredibly hard to provide relief and support to those affected by this disaster.

I would be immensely grateful if you would be kind enough to help me reach my target! My aim is not just to volunteer in Fiji, but to be able to contribute to long term support for the children I work with.

In order to raise funds for the charity, and this project, I will be running the 2016 London Marathon.