RABIES

What a week! The busiest pre-India week yet began with the start of my luxury free for three challenge. This is a task I set myself to surrender luxuries for three weeks. The first five days were to be lived iPhone-less. Now, as any iPhone or smartphone user will know, that little machine of wonders is the new-age Holy Book. Aside from the obvious lack of tweeting and the annoyance at myself for my instinctive search for the thing in-between clients at work, I generally found it quite easy. It is incredible how much we use smartphones within this digital age.

I'm now in my second week of "luxury free for three" - the living below the line part. Over the next five days, I will be living on less than £1 a day on food & drink. My good friend & colleague Aziza took me to do my shop and, with her help & nutritional advice, I managed to get a weeks food on £4.99 - a whole 1p spare. I'll update you on how it goes in my next post.

As much as this will be good practise, there is a purpose to going luxury free - fundraising! If you wish to sponsor me, visit http://www.JustGiving.com/BambiRaleigh and please give what you can!

What else is happening? Well, I'm 1/3 more protected from Rabies than I was 7 days ago. There's something exciting for you. I've begun the immunisation course for this and fortunately, because of my backpacking trip to Thailand last year, it's the only jab I need this time round.

I've had medical clearance from my GP, so I'm officially fit enough & insurable for India. The doc was kind enough to countersign the med form free of charge as it's for charity - that was nice.

Another huge moment from the past week has been successfully hitting over 75% of my fundraising total! Completely overwhelming - even more so as this has been raised in less than 4 weeks! This takes the total sum to over £600 and I'm now only £200 away from my goal.

Thank you so much to everybody who has donated, you're changing lives and changing worlds. Thank you!

I've been continuing to organise That Friday Feeling and have been busy advertising, sorting a press release and selling the first tickets. If you want to find out more or purchase tickets, visit the Eventbrite page

It's exciting arranging my own event and I can't wait to throw one hell of a party!

As I write this, I'm clawing my eyes open to avoid the temptations of sleep. The weekend just passed has been fantabulous, celebrating my dear friend Millie's 22nd birthday alongside her friends and family with a superb meal on Friday night at Little Bay in Brighton (a wonderful hybrid of opera and food, being serenaded over a tantalizing three course dinner) followed by an antic-filled Saturday night of live music and Tuaca. We headed to see Brother & Bones - this uber cool bang Mill & I saw in Camden a few months back, imagine a cross between Mumford & Sons and Red Hot Chilli Peppers and you're halfway there. Fantastic and utterly ear-pleasing. After heading onto a club and the kebab shop, the night ended passed out on the living room floor. I love Saturdays.

All-in-all, the best weekend in a long time and too much craziness for me to write (or even want to write #whathappensinBrighton)

So, yes. Another week of preparation ahead, and I can assure you I'll be very hungry and still hungover!

Please excuse me, my bed and Footprint India are calling..

Ciao

SOMEONE ELSE

So I just wanted to share this with you quickly.
This is a first-hand account of somebody else's Raleigh ICS experience in India; what they did, how they did it and how they continued their work.
It's given me a buzz about it, and will hopefully explain a bit better than I can what I'll be doing..
Annie - ICS volunteer

Annie joined Raleigh’s International Citizen Service (ICS) as a volunteer in South India to work on a project promoting sustainable livelihoods in rural communities, as well as raising awareness around women’s issues and health awareness. Annie was inspired by the women she met in India and decided to focus on women’s issues for her Action at Home project.

Annie was a UK volunteer in India, in Spring 2013.

 

“I volunteered with Raleigh ICS in the South Indian villages of Attapaddy, Odamandai and Segatti. We worked with Raleigh’s long-term project partner MYRADA, which works with marginalised farmers, women, youth and disadvantaged community members.
The villages are based in a rural, mountainous environment surrounded by dense forest and there are high levels of illiteracy among the adult population. These remote communities are highly dependent on agriculture as a means of income.
The UK volunteers and Indian volunteers worked together to carry out many activities such as research, awareness raising, and developing resources and infrastructures for the community.
The aim of the construction phase of the project was to help to maximise the potential profits farmers could make to benefit their families and their community, building sustainable means of making the most of natural resources, including the building of cow sheds and vermi compost tanks. Vermicompost is a farming technique which uses worms to create nutrient organic fertilizer. We raised awareness around the use of these components with the wider villages as we felt they were long-term farming solutions which were kind to the environment and would also improve crop yields.
I think the aspect of our project which caused the greatest, long-term impact were the awareness raising activities we undertook. We talked about relevant issues such as the importance of education, child labour and various health issues, and our most successful campaign focused on maternal and child health.
Building on the responses collected from our research in the community, we designed a targeted campaign which raised awareness of the value of Vitamin A, iodine and iron in the diet of expectant and breastfeeding mothers, and using oral rehydration solution (ORS) in treating children with diarrhoea. The response was very positive. One lady told us ‘When my children aren’t at home, I don’t cook vegetables and that is when I have the most problems with my eyesight. Now I understand why.’
After witnessing a positive response educating women in the village of Attapaddy, we extended our campaign to include women in many of the surrounding villages. Overall, the campaign ran in 8 villages and reached 162 women.
It was really great to start seeing positive changes in the village such as children who started proactively brushing their teeth regularly.
I feel the ICS placement has opened my eyes in various ways. Firstly living in a remote village, I have learnt about a way of life very different from my own; having to spend the first hour of every morning collecting water, watching cows plough the crops, getting involved in villagers daily conversations, family structures and their various religious undertakings and festivals.
Secondly, the relationship between UK volunteers and the local volunteers has been a learning curve and a great way of bringing people from different cultural backgrounds together and learning to live and work alongside each other, despite different ideas on the ways thing are done.
Thirdly, my idea of development has heightened through the training I received, but also living directly with the village and understanding different ways to improve lives in a sustainable manner.
Since the programme I have developed a greater tolerance and patience regarding working in a group, and a greater awareness of the negotiation and open-mindedness that is needed in order to co-operate and work together as a team in order to try and gain the best outcome.
It has been a huge learning curve of personal development as well as understanding development in an international setting. It has inspired me to learn more about Indian society and potentially to look to do more charity work.
One of my greatest moments from my ICS experience was, after having given an awareness lesson at a school outside our village, a woman was looking over the school wall with a beautiful, friendly smile. We greeted her and swapped names and smiles. She then invited us to have tea at her house. We sat and spoke in broken language, but she was so warm and giving that we were able to understand each other without words; her excitement to see us and our gratitude for the tea. Most importantly the welcome into a stranger’s home, which highlights the universal act of kindness and openness that can act as a bridge between people from different countries and languages.
For my Action at Home project I decided to raise awareness of an issue and to involve others in taking action. I decided to focus on women’s issues, in particular violence against women.
Whilst I was in India I feel I was witness to certain perceptions of gender and issues regarding gender inequality and also women’s space in society. It made me think about my own society and the treatment of women in the UK.
Although women may be to some extent more “free” in this society, there are still mass inequalities here that are apparent in everyday, such as unequal pay in the workplace. I therefore decided to organize a flashmob in connection with the campaign One Billion Rising – a campaign to raise awareness about violence against women worldwide. My ICS experience has inspired me to focus more on women’s issues and understand the inequalities that are present in today’s world.
I am currently volunteering with vulnerable asylum seekers in my community. I am also raising money to go back to India and find some more voluntary work out there that is connected to women and girl’s empowerment."








Women's rights is something very close to my heart, having been raised in a single parent family by a strong mother and having grown up around strong female role models. I hope to work on gender equality issues during my stay and Annie's story has given me more hope that I can make a difference!
Please donate towards Raleigh & ICS and my trip to India at http://www.JustGiving.com/BambiRaleigh



L8rz h8rz xo

GLASS HALF FULL

Halfway! I'm halfway there!
In under two weeks, I've raised £425 - I'm over the halfway point!

http://www.JustGiving.com/BambiRaleigh

Thank you so much to everybody that's donated so far!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm completely overwhelmed by people's support and generosity! No words can express.
A large amount of the money has come from the fantastic clients in the salon, who have been incredibly giving. What's been great for me has been telling the story again and again, not just for fundraising but for my own head, it's helped me get my head around what the hell it is I'm doing! The customers at the shop have not only been wonderfully loyal but also become like family. As much as I'm glad to be taking the next step in life, I'm really going to miss the wonderful ladies of Hassocks!

In the past week, I have continued to organise That Friday Feeling. I'll be postering around the area within the next week, and I have contacted local papers and magazines in search of a feature or an advertisement. I've also been emailing local businesses and companies asking for raffle prizes - and let me tell you, it's boring as hell sending email after email. However, it's all worth it! I've got a couple of prizes already (one from Choccywoccydoodah, which is fantastic!) but there's more work to do on that front..
My colleague has also handmade cards to sell, for which we take 50% of the profits each, and on Friday I had a bake sale in the salon in return for a small donation to the cause. Both of these have made a definite footprint in the funds total.

In terms of my life, well... nothing much has really happened. The thing about going away for 3 months+ is that I need money, and to have money I need to save, and to save I can't be the social beauty that I normally am. I did allow myself funds last week to have one last night out with one of my oldest and best friends before she moves away. If there's one thing I love about clubbing, it's the allowance to look glam without being judged. Now, I generally look glam on a daily basis, but some people can't be as fabulous as me, darling!

It was also my two bestest best best friends birthdays in the week - they share the same date - so drinks and laughter and VIP Skype-ing was had. I've had such fantastic support from my friends for India and it's when something like this comes along that you really can tell when you've got the right people in your life.

This week, I have to start buying kit! I figure that if I start early, there'll be no last minute rush and I'll have excess money to put into savings before I go. I've also got my travel nurse appointment on Wednesday and - oh what's that, more saving and no fun?
Oh, go on then!

*exhale*