If you think students spend all their spare time avoiding studying, going out with their mates and having a good time then you'd be right. Well our student bloggers do anyway. While they assure us they don't slack on the study, they've got a lot to answer for when it comes to enjoying themselves while volunteering.

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Wednesday Dec 19, 2007

End of term report

I have now completed my first term as Project Leader of READ Book Project Warwick.  For those of you who haven't read my blog before the READ Book Projects are a part of READ International.  The charity aims to 'Realise Education to Allow Development'.  As a part of this, the project I lead (alongside two other project leaders) collects high-quality, disused textbooks from local secondary schools over the course of an academic year.  We then store them and raise money for them to be sent over to Tanzania where some of our volunteers will get the chance to distribute them amongst 20 schools in the summer.  Along the way our project will attempt to raise awareness of our cause and make a real effort to get into our local schools to educate children about what challenges their peers face day in day out in developing countries.  Hopefully we can give them the chance, through arranging to round up their own school's donated books, or raising some money for us to find some solutions to the problems countries like Tanzania are facing.

It has been a busy term.  Life as a project leader is markedly different then it is a volunteer.  Luckily this year we have had managed to recruit a very impressive group of students at Warwick University to help us, but even so the extra responsibility inevitably eats into your spare time.  However, it has been an absolute pleasure to watch 20 or so people put a huge amount of effort into something that you consider really important.  Going out to Tanzania in the summer and seeing some of the issues that the children there have to overcome really brings it all home how much of an impact we can make.  It really is worth it.

READ International has expanded quickly since it was first formed.  Starting at Nottingham University, it went to five others last year and now has 11 universities running READ Book Projects.  Back at the end of October the charity re-launched at the Houses of Commons.  Douglas Alexander (Minister for International Development) was present and spoke as well as the Tanzania High Commissioner in the UK.  Bruce Forsyth, Mick Jagger, Deila Smith and Toady from neighbours also made an appearance....

(Some, if not all of the last four names might have been lies).

 The point I am trying to make is that it is a charity that is going places.  It is being taken seriously both here (READ International won the award for Best New Charity in the UK and the Times Charity Awards this year) and in Tanzania.  It is giving me, and other young people the chance to do something about issues which to them are very important.

 This summer I have been given the chance to go back to Tanzania.  I will have a bit more responsibility and it will be more like a job.  With the beaches, the mountains, the beer, the rice, the sun, the rice, the temperatures, the rice, the people and the rice I can't think of a better way to spend a summer.  Well..a tropical island, unlimited Gin and Tonic and Liz Hurley wouldn't be objectionable.  But then I wouldn't get rice. 

Happy Christmas.   

 

Posted by Tom G ( 10:28 PM )
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