A Brother's Right To Reply

The article below talked about exactly where any funds raised for World Vision through our Kili efforts will go. I also mentioned that my brother Paul has been promising a generous donation but is keeping his powder dry for now...

We're currently at £8,100 with my (much older) brother Paul teasing us with promises of a very large donation, contingent upon Crystal Palace winning a football match. Could be a very long wait....

Well, he tried to post a response to my gentle goading but hasn't got Blogging Access to Kili50. In the interests of freedom of speech, fairness and brotherly love, here are his kind words...completely free of editorial intervention:

Hi Bloggers - it's the "slightly" older, but much better looking brother of Andy here (and father of Steve!). Having followed Andy's dream for nearly two years - and having the courage, but not unfortunately the knee ligaments, to join the trip, Carol and I are indeed going to greatly assist the coffers with a donation as promised. It is subject to one "personal finance condition" but happily it does not relate to any of our football or cricket teams winning! I hope to be able to confirm the amount prior to lift off but it will still leave a little amount required from a few donors to help Andy reach the target. So dig deep and help a most worthy cause.

Paul

There you go...still tantalising us, Bruv. Whatever and whenever you donate will be much appreciated. And I'm sure in no way a guilt-relieving gesture, as suggested by Steve, for not being with us. Hope the knee ligaments continue to improve on the golf course and through the support of your personal trainer...we'll be thinking of you as we stretch our bodies, minds and souls to the limits on Kili in just 2 weeks from now.

EXACTLY where the money will go....

In just over 2 weeks we'll finally be heading out to take on Kilimanjaro. My own original motivation to take on this challenge was the imminence of my 50th birthday. You could call it a mid-life crisis, I suppose...but I just wanted to check out the old plumbing before it shuts down completely for the winter. In a metaphorical sense, of course.

But an added ingredient was the desire to raise some funds for World Vision, a charity close to my heart for about the last 10 years.

We wrote earlier of the intention to give a small amount back to Tanzania in exchange for borrowing their large mountain for a week.

World Vision have one of their Area Development Projects in the small central community of Kisiriri, and we agreed with the charity that any funds we could raise would benefit the local people there.

Well, now we can be even more precise about where any funds generously donated by you for our Kili cause will go. Thanks to Peter at World Vision for the following information:

One of the main problems that the people of Kisiriri face is a lack of clean, safe drinking water. The only water they can collect is from unprotected traditional wells and seasonal riverbeds that dry out during the dry periods.

This leads to various problems, the lack of water meaning that local communities spend a lot of time collecting water, time that could be spent going to school or earning a living.

And the water that is collected is not safe or clean. As a result many diseases and infections are caught. One of these is guinea worm, which is a horrifying result of drinking contaminated water and creating worm larvae incubating inside the body and growing up to 3 feet in length over a long period, before slowly and painfully emerging through the skin.

The World Vision funded project aims to reduce poverty in Kisiriri by providing improved access to clean safe water and basic sanitation. It will also reduce waterborne diseases.

The project's main milestones are:

• mobilise the village government leaders and community members to ensure that the project is sustainable
• carry out a full analysis of the area
• carry out a hydro-geological survey of the area
• drill and construct 3 boreholes
• buy and install 3 pumps for the boreholes
• train 24 water pump attendants in pump installation, maintenance and repairs

The budget for the whole project is still being finalised but preliminary estimates are a total of approximately £100,000. But the £10,000 target that we've set is critical and will allow all of the initial survey and construction stages to be carried out, before the seriously expensive pumps (US$30,000 each!) are installed.

In detail, the £10,000 will pay for drilling all the test holes needed for the project; construction of the wells themselves, including drilling, installing the casing and installing the filter; carrying out all of the water testing, including sampling the water for its physical/chemical and bacteriological qualities. This is all obviously a vital part of the project as it makes sure that the water is safe!

We're currently at £8,100 with my (much older) brother Paul teasing us with promises of a very large donation, contingent upon Crystal Palace winning a football match. Could be a very long wait....

So if you read this please help us get closer to the target by donating here. You will be enabling a few people in central Tanzania to reduce the risk of suffering from the horrors of guinea worm, for example, and to benefit from something that we all take for granted - fresh, clean drinking water.