Things just keep rolling

I am still getting calls and enquiries on a daily basis from people wishing to help our cause and donate items. This is really great and very encouraging.

I will be drafting a letter soon to attempt to obtain airline sponsorship, with all the donations we will be collecting there is no way I will be able to fit it all in my luggage. So we'll need a container to ship things out. If anyone know of a company or airline that would sponsor this please do get in touch!! matt@mattwilson.biz

in the News...

Great news, the Gulf News, a popular Middle-East Newspaper, has published an article regarding our trip to Luhimba. This is really good publicity and I've had a encouraging response today from people interested in helping out and donating to the cause.
Click here

The timing for the trip is now planned for February 2007, this gives us time to organise gathering more donations and resources for the project. I'm really excited about what we can achieve here in Dubai to help out people a lot less fortunate than ourselves. There certainly seem to be a great spirit of giving here and I hope that I can do my little bit to make everyone's generosity worthwhile.

Dates

The Luhimba Project Team from the UK will be travelling to Tanzania on the 29th September. We hope to join them here in dubai as the will be travelling through Dubai with Emirates. Once we're on the plane it's a short(ish) flight to Dar and then a long drive down to the village itself.

I'm planning on getting a lot fitter between now and then so that we can climb Kilimanjaro. This is where I'll need your support and encouragement, We hope to raise a lot of money for the project and our effort will be well worth it!! It will take about 6 days to climb to the rim and a couple of days to get back down. A lot of equipment is going to be needed so if any one can donate anything that would obviously help! Check out the things we need to consider Click Here

I can't wait!!

Delivery

I have received a very encouraging email from Paul Temple, it looks like our trip can coincide with a trip Paul is arranging for late September early October. There is lots happening in Luhimba at the moment, this planned trip is to delivery a 17 tonne truck, full of medical, educational and farming equipment.This could be very exciting and I'm hoping we can really help out in the delivery of this equipment. They have recently finished building a large 20 bed extension on to the dispensary and have now setup 30 small businesses through a new fund, setup by the Luhimba Project, that lets the villages borrow money to help micro level entrepreneurs get started.

The secondary school attendance is growing and some of the children having even taken their O' Levels. This is all great progress and is a clear sign that the hard work and generosity is really paying off. It's amazing how much effect you can have on other peoples live by giving some of your love and time.

We plan to climb Kilimanjaro to help raise money and awareness for Luhimba and similiar projects in other parts of Africa too. There is a constant struggle in Africa, with proverty, war, corruption, poor education and health! All these things need to be addressed on a micro and macro level. If we can do our bit and in the process, encourage you or people like you to help or just to be aware of what's going on, then awareness and aid can spread, in our one world how is it that we can be sat in front of a computer connected to an ever growing network of knowledge and communication and yet in Africa extreme poverty and civil war are rife?

It doesn't make a lot of sense does it? Knowledge and our awareness is key..

Friends

A few of our friends are showing an interest in this adventure that we are planning, so it may end up being a small group of us that go to Luhimba and climb Kilimanjaro too.
As we get definite takers, we'll introduce you to them! But the more the merrier, and any support you wish to offer will be most welcome.

Things that could help:

Old Glasses
Donated Tooth Brushes
Pencils and Pens

Anything that we can carry in our luggage that will aid the villages to learn and help to keep them healthy will be greatly appreciated. The balance has to be struck though. Giving endlessly makes people expect the aid and rely on it, what we really need to do is concentrate on showing them the ways in which they can help themselves. Sustainable aid, as money will not last forever.

I have added the link to the official Luhimba Project website on the right of the page. Please visit the site and find out what it's all about.

Contact

Back in 2005, before I came out to Dubai I was planning a trip to Southern Tanzania to help out in a village there called Luhimba, I met with an English school teacher in the UK, Paul Temple, who runs the Luhimba Project, a charity based in Weston-super-Mare, my home town. The Luhimba Project was designed to achieve sustainable improvements in the quality of the villagers life through education, health, clean water, agriculture and engineering. My trip there was put on hold due to being offered the job here in Dubai and having to relocate.

Now I gearing up to plan the trip again. This is my dairy!

16 July 2006: Today I spoke again to Paul Temple, as luck would have it, Paul’s home phone number had managed to survive 3000 miles of relocating and 3 different mobile transfers and fortunately he hadn't moved house. He was very exciting to hear from me and it was great to make contact again. Paul is an amazing guy who just seems to have a very youthful lust for life and when you get him on the subject of Luhimba that passion and enthusiasm grow exponentially.

So we spoken briefly and I came away feeling encouraged, I quickly went about sending him an email asking him all manner of questions and hoping for more details on Luhimba and the projects progress.

I also emailed my boss, hoping my company could offer some help or guidance, as they have a vested interest in things of a philanthropic nature.

Here starts the Journey and a journey not to be taken alone or lightly. Luckily for me my great friend Naomi wants this adventure too. We'll be planning this together and sharing all we can.