Andrew Horne, one of our team of Independent Financial Advisers, is undertaking a three day charity cycle ride (153 miles) coast to coast from Seascale to Whitby with four university friends (25 years ago!) to raise fund for Harpenden Spotlight on Africa (HSoA) and with particular emphasis towards a project of building a maternity centre which will cost £132,000. Andrew and his friends are aiming to raise £3000 on their cycle ride.
This charitable work is focused in Mbale region of Uganda which one of poorest districts with highest Maternal Mortality Rates (MMR) where women are 56 times more likely to die in childbirth compared to UK. Previous work undertaken and completed since 2016 includes:
- Building a school – enabling pupil attendance numbers to rise from just 60 children to over 900 with the provision of a cooked meal at lunchtime for every student often this is their only meal of the day.
- Empowering the local community – improving essential health by training over 250 local Ugandan volunteers to deliver practical advice to their communities – ranging from hand-washing to malaria and HIV/AIDS control.
- Economic development – small projects have helped self-sufficiency through schemes such as giving goats to widows/orphans providing them with food, fish farms that generate jobs and push-pull farming techniques that increase crop yields.
- Clean Water – drilling of 25 boreholes have provided local communities with clean water. Coverage in the county is now at 80% compared to only 25% ten years ago
Andrew is on the fundraising committee of HSoA and amongst this current project he is extremely passionate about charity work and has a real vision of starting his own charity in the future.
