Home Away From Home

Last week's event was a blast. I have to admit. It beat even my own ambitious and so-I-thought-unrealistic expectations. From an initial target of £15k, we had soon realized we had been too conservative to want to build only one water well with such an evening. By the time the lights were on and the event started we were well over it, net of costs. The moment the auction had the first bids we knew we already had secured another well, only with the starting bids. But the night went on. The speeches, though a bit long (including my own), went very well. People were touched and impressed by how little it would take to achieve so much. And that is in the root of all of our fundraising - asking people for little gestures, to get great helps.  I will admit, my own expectation was at £50k, assuming the evening was a success. But truth be said, I was far from the almost £70k raised and still counting, pre-matching and with some gift aid to go. What a blast.  More important than hav...

This year, thanks to a group of friends, my birthday wish has once again come true. For my 28th birthday, I asked you to help me feed and bring to school 70 children between the ages of 3 and 6. With friends' help, I raised 1790 Euros, which net of paypal fees, allows me to give one meal a day and schooling to 30 children for an entire year! I can't tell you how lucky I feel to have friends like you. I may not have made it to 70, but I am way better than before. And I have not given up just yet. Even though the kids have their lessons under a tree, they are privileged to get a meal before going home, perhaps the only meal in their day. A Little Gesture (NGO) will not only seek to raise the remaining funds, but also complement the aid with school supplies and a construction project to give a roof to this school. With little gestures, our dreams do come true. I want to thank those who helped for your little gestures, for making my birthday wish happen, for being my friends! -----...

Dear Friends I am now in sunny Lisbon, after a race through London flat hunting and a month living my "other" love in Mozambique. I am happy to be finally back in Europe and looking forward to a new life in London in 2 weeks. Today is my 28th birthday and as tradition dictates i get to make a birthday wish. I was moved by my friends generosity last year as I raised over 3000 Euros for the Orphanage Technical School. After spending a month seeing close what money can do in Mozambique my birthday wish is clear. A 65 year old teacher fed 70 children for 3 months with 1000 Euros. I want to pay her whole year. I want to build her a school. I want to give those kids a chance Today I ask all my friends to make my birthday wish come true. You must admit, it could be harder :-) It is not a Gucci Bag, a Prada pair of shoes or an expensive dinner. I ask for your donation, whatever you can give, a little gesture, that we will make a great help! Donate Here https://www.paypal.com/pt/cgi-b...

Sometimes it's hard not to lose hope. Last week I had to tell a 10 year old I would not give him his monthly food supply until he would go back to school and would show up every morning. He is an orphan, his mum abandoned him, his stepmother tried to still from him. Sister Aparecida is now the one who feeds him, dresses him and sends him to school. But temptation is too big and the week he gets the food he does not go to school and stays home eating. Since it was exams week, we had to delay the food... Yesterday we went to look for the house of a 2nd grade kid who stopped showing up at school. Yesterday he came and said his dad did not let him come to school because he had to make some money everyday to take home. When we went to his house we knew why he came yesterday: his dad was away. Sister Isabel has promised to come back Sunday but today the kid was in the streets again. The dad was back. Today, as I left the pre-school in the morning, a policemen asked me to give a ride t...

There is just too much on my mind. At all times. And it seems to have gotten worse as I do not have more cases to read, not deterred by the fact that I have exams in less than 48 hours. I know, reading that book last night did not really help. So in one of these discussions about Social Enterprise that I attended, someone recommended a book called “Leaving Microsoft to Change the World”. It is written by John Wood who, after realizing the dimension of the illiteracy problem in Nepal vs. the dimension of the problems he used to have such as will Microsoft beat IBM or not, left Microsoft to create Room to Read. I opened the book at midnight, thinking I would have a quick read before an early night of sleep and, an hour and a half, some tears and strong heart beats later, I realized how much it moved me. If I ever have any doubts whether I am going in the right direction, a moment like this makes it all very clear to me. He has not even left Microsoft yet and I can already feel the thrill...