Hello, my name is Oli Jones, I am fifteen years old and I live in Bath. I, and four friends are planning to visit St Michaels School for Girls in Uganda in June next year, 2014, after we finish our GCSEs. We were really inspired by their English teacher who visited the UK last year to raise awareness of the school and I felt that I wanted to make a difference myself.

The six of us live in or near Bath and all go to different secondary schools in the area.  Our schools are St Gregory's, Ralph Allen, Beechen Cliff and Corsham. When we met Andrew the teacher from St Michaels we saw a short video that the girls had made to introduce themselves and the school. I was amazed by their motivation to achieve and follow dreams despite all the difficulties they will have to overcome. I was surprised how many wanted to be surgeons, or doctors, they all had dreams; Pilots, accountants, musicians, businesswomen. They were all so aware at such a young age. It made me feel privileged, and very aware of the amazing lives we have here in the UK.

Many of the girls at the school are orphans, some are boarders and many have a long walk everyday to and from school. Some have to walk for 1 to 2 hours to get to school. A charity called Friends of St Michaels School Busembatia has enabled the school to develop over recent years by fund raising for different projects, for example so that each child can have a simple bowl of gruel for lunch instead of only the boarders.  This means that those who walk with no breakfast, can at least have a little sustenance at school.

But, you may ask, what could we do? What value could we add to their lives? I do not want to visit just because I am a rich white kid who wants to clear his conscience. This charity are supporting our visit to the school and encouraging us to bring ourselves to share our desire to build relationships and friendships, share our life experience, ideas and skills, learn from them and physically help out at the school for 3 weeks.

To enable us to do the trip we are fundraising firstly to get ourselves there. This means we each have to raise around £1800. I have raised £100 so far playing piano at a craft fair at the Larkhall Festival earlier this year. Our next fundraiser is to do a sponsored cycle ride, 100 miles from Richmond Park in London to Alice Park in Bath on Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th September.  The last section of the ride will be along the canal coming into Bath, people can meet us at the George and cycle the last bit to Alice park from 3.30pm on Sunday 8th or just meet us in Alice Park to celebrate our long journey with a cake or ice cream.  If you would like to donate please click on this link or you can transfer directly  into my savings account which I am using to

You can donate using the Paypal DONATE button at the bottom of this page.

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/HelpUganda2014