I was just 70 when I decided to undertake seven challenges in seven weeks and use these as a peg on which to hang raising money for the North Staffs Kidney Patients Association, Staffordshire Transplant Association Family and Friends and the Salma Dialysis Centre in Khartoum.  I did not know then that I was embarking on a long-term venture.  I started formally on 7 April 2005 and I found I could not simply down tools on 7 April 2006.  It is now 2007!

I had become captivated by Ethiopia and by good fortune I had come to know the African Children’s Educational Trust.  Supporting A-CET is now a priority as well as continuing to support the North Staffs Kidney Patients Association as promoting the NHS Organ Donor Register.

 THE AFRICAN CHILDREN’S EDUCATIONAL TRUST (A-CET)

A-CET works in Mekelle in Tigray province in northern Ethiopia.  This was the centre of the 1984/85 famine which Michael Buerk brought so vividly to our television screens and which gave rise to Bob Geldof’s Band Aid and Live Aid concerts.

My visit to Mekelle in March 2006 is described in My Ethiopian Journey 2006.

 During my time in Mekelle I met some of the 600 vulnerable children who are supported and mentored through their education by A-CET. This remarkable charity targets particularly vulnerable youngsters, physically or land-mine disabled, civil war or Aids orphans or former street children. 

 A-CET also supports the upgrading of two rural schools.  I visited these schools and saw the work in progress. It was clear that this was a very real partnership between the local community, A-CET and the regional government.  If a school can build a class room the government will provide a teacher.

I witnessed the delivery of the first desks for Fikre Alem School in Aderak. Before this around 400 pupils sat on the ground for their lessons.   When I returned to Fikre Alem in 2007 new class rooms had been completed and an additional 200 children had been enrolled.  I could not work out where all the children came from!  There were only small clusters of houses on the horizon.  The next time I visit, hopefully in the autumn of 2008 when it will be spring time in Ethiopia, I will try to walk around the villages to see where the children live and how far they have to walk to school.

On my first visit I had taken Stoke City Football Club strip to give to Atse Yohannes IV Secondary School. This time I delivered Stoke FC shirts to Fikre Alem School and A-CET added a couple of new footballs! 

A highlight of my recent visit was a special performance by Circus Salem. You can read more about this voluntary youth initiative in the account of my second visit, Ethiopia 2007.  

While I was in Ethiopia I participated in a Women First 5Km in Addis Ababa.  Over 8000 women and girls took part and its theme was to end violence against women. It was a serious event for the elite runners and a lot of fun for the rest of us. 

I will continue to raise money for A-CET and if you want to know more log-on to www.a-cet.org  

I am also collecting old mobile phones.  For each phone I collect A-CET will receive £3.00. All you need to do is remove the Sim card and I will do the rest!