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Sometimes, some people touch your heart when you are least expecting it.
I was on holiday and fortunate enough to be visiting the Amazon in Brazil, which incidentally is a wonderful place of natural beauty.
On a public holiday, we arranged to visit a local settlement, which was also home to a school. Now, this is no ordinary school, nor is the teacher an ordinary teacher and as a consequence, nor are these kids ordinary kids either!
First, let's meet Maria...
Maria has been the teacher at this school for about 10 years, she IS the school in reality. She started without a building and picture the scene, this is a small island in the heart of the Amazon, accessible only by boat...across the tops of the submerged trees. In fact, until fairly recently, Maria used to drive the boat to fetch and carry the kids into school every single day. Now, her son is old enough, that's his job!
The kids come from the surrounding area...there is no public transport and there are no other schools for miles and miles around...literally. The original classroom was outside on the ground, no building, chairs of materials as such.
Here is the general setting...
Since that time, Maria has developed the school from a single mixed-age class to three age-divided classes instead. Thanks to a benefactor a few years ago, the school building was constructed. It is modest with two classrooms, here are the photos...
Perhaps the most inspiring part of the visit goes to the kids themselves. Not only did they give up a holiday just to be there to show us their school (yes they came in or their day off as they heard we were coming!). They also delivered a small presentation to us, just a few words to introduce them selves. To be perfectly honest with you, I was blown away and totally humbled when I heard them.
In turn, each one of them stood up, gave their name and age but also said what they wanted to be when they grow up. Teachers (unsurprisingly give their role model), doctors, nurses, vets, tour guides, entrepreneurs and just the odd footballer and one of those two was a girl lol. It really touched me to hear their ambition and their hopes for a better future.
To put this into contrast, there were some children with us on the tour from Europe. They could be classed as well-off without any doubt. They were asked to repeat the same presentation. However, most of them had no idea what they wanted to be when they grow up. I don't really blame them, they were unprepared and they have time to decide, a decent education to prepare them and many choices to make. However, it served to heighten the plight of the Amazonian children. How many will in reality get to realise their dream?
I don't really know, but I would like to try in small part to support their quest.
Some future medics, teachers and tour guides...
The school needs some basic materials and equipment - nobody asked for this but it was apparent upon some subtle inquiries. They don't even know yet that I am trying to help them.
In order to help them, I decided to do something I had never done before...run 10k. It may not sound like a lot, however when you consider that, as I said, have never run this far before, am nearly fifty years old and am recovering from a damaged Achilles tendon injury...it is still a challenge for me.
My goal is to run a 10k on Saturday 7th November 2015 and do this in less than an hour. I was supposed to be taking part in an organised event on that day but when we came to apply, found it to be oversubscribed unfortunately. However, rather than simply give up, something inside me said...do it anyway!
Therefore, I am doing it anyway, even if that means doing it alone! I have since been training, again mostly alone, however I am determined to do this and raise some money for this school. At the time of writing, I managed to gradually build up my training...3k, 5k and then adding an extra kilometre per week. I will keep the rest up my sleeve, but suffice to say...I may want to make my goal an 'elastic' one come 7th November...
As I said at the beginning of this piece, you never know when someone will touch your heart. Maria, the school teacher in the middle of the Amazon, along with her inspirational school children certainly did a month or two back. Now, it's my turn to give and I would like to give them some much needed equipment and study materials to the tune of £1,000.
Why don't you join me and pledge your support too? I have set up a fundraising page with Just Giving, which you can find here. Also, this is part of a wider fundraising initiative that myself and Damien Fogg are committing to through our mentoring and training partnership, our fundraising page on Facebook can be found here for more info.
If you made it this far, perhaps there is something telling you that these kids need a break...let's try and maintain their hope together shall we?
Thanks for looking.
[…] Sometimes, some people touch your heart when you are least expecting it. I was on holiday and fortunate enough to be visiting the Amazon in Brazil, which incidentally is a wonderful place of natural beauty. On a public holiday, we arranged to visit a local settlement, which was also home to a school. Now, this is no ordinary school, nor is the teacher an ordinary teacher and as a consequence, nor are these kids ordinary kids either! First, let's meet Maria… Maria has b… […]