Charities Trust

Hello and thank you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page and reading this! At the end of January 2011, I am going to the South West of India to volunteer in rural communities and contribute to various environmental projects for 10 weeks (3 months), and I have until the end of November to raise as much money as possible! India, like many developing countries has a vast disparity in wealth, health care, education and general quality of life when comparing the lives of those in the booming urban settings (e.g. Mumbai) and those in the rural regions of the country. It has been described that towns and cities make more than “two thirds of the Indian GDP, even though less than a third lives in them”, which illustrates the inequality in income suffered by many. Environmentally, India faces the same issues as many booming nations. Issues of deforestation, loss of biodiversity and the destruction of the habitat of endangered species are unsustainable and mean that as important as the community is in India, environmental management and conservation is essential in order to be sustainable and reduce the negative effect of rapid growth in India. Raleigh International work together with identified communities and focus on the development of the basics of life that we take for granted such as infrastructure, sanitation and education facilities, and on my trip I will be helping with these projects to help ensure that there is a significant improvement in the quality of life whilst brightening the lives of those whom are less fortunate than we are here in the UK. I am so happy to have this opportunity to go and make a real difference with my hard work, so please, please any help you can provide in the form of donations is much appreciated and it all goes to a very good cause. Please Note: Any money you kindly donate to me for my efforts will all go to a good cause and to charity (Raleigh International). I am funding my own travel and my accommodation and food costs are already covered – so your money is definitely going to a good cause. If you would like more information on the work that Raleigh perform here are their charitable objectives; http://www.raleighinternational.org/about-raleigh/charitable-objectives What your donation is spent on Working in a Community. 1. Building housing and shelter - directly increases life spans and provides for the basic need of shelter, warmth and protection from wild animals. 2. Building education facilities - ensuring children from local villages can be educated and spend their childhoods safely growing up. 3. Bringing water sources to communities, so that villagers don't have to walk miles every day to get minimal amounts of (not always clean) water. This allows villagers to pursue other vital tasks with the time saved, and to stay healthy. Making amazing Environmental projects happen 1. Elephant-proof trenching – working with the WWF, Raleigh ensures the protection of Elephants by reducing the human-wildlife conflict which often leads to the unnecessary culling of Elephants by local farmers. 2. Setting up bio-gas projects – aims to stop villagers illegally using wood for fires to cook or purify water with, and stop families from inhaling smoke let off from indoor cooking fires by helping install methane catching units that harness the methane omissions by livestock which is very sustainable. 3. Repair and construction of anti-poaching camps - ensures that Park Rangers have the necessary basic facilities to protect the woodlands and wildlife successfully. This includes the safeguarding of the rapidly disappearing Bengal Tiger - a beautiful big cat which is at the top of the WWF's list of endangered wildlife Thank you very much for your time and hopefully you'll donate to a good cause! James :) Here are some Raleigh videos: Raleigh expedition: environmental project, Nagarahol National Park, India - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SG2-Q3cOoc