身體力行，做個慈善家

花季故事

Starting My Own Charity

還記得上期我們介紹的度假九法嗎？里面提到的其中一個方法就是當志愿者。如果你還在猶豫，或不知道怎樣選擇適合自己的志愿者組織，不妨聽聽以下這位英國學生的故事。23歲的羅布在大學參加志愿活動時，從未想過不久后會創立自己的慈善組織，幫助遠在坦桑尼亞的孩子……

How I Got Involved

I had travelled before university and seen parts ofthe developing world， so I’d always been interested ininternational development，but I cer-tainly didn’t go to universitywith any ideas to pursue it as a career. My friend hadbeen to Tanzania teaching and he made me aware thatthe Tanzanian education system is based on the Britishsystem， but there’s a huge ¹⁾demand for educationalresources. He decided to get a group of us together anddo something about it. The idea began slowly， then whenmy friend graduated I decided to lead the project with acouple of friends， and it started to get more serious.

Overcoming Difficulties

I got a team of volunteers together and wecontacted 200 secondary schools and collectedaround 40，000 textbooks. We sorted through themto send the best quality to Tanzania. We sentmaths， physics， chemistry， biology and ge-ography books， which perfectly match the ²⁾syllabus.We had no idea how to ship and ³⁾distribute all these books to Tanzania， but I managedto lead a team of student volunteers through it!

As a group of friends at university we reallyhad ⁴⁾achieved something that a lot of people didn’tbelieve we could achieve.A lot of peoplewere quick to tell us that it wouldn’t work，we wouldn’t be able to make the right contactsor distribute the books， and that the ⁵⁾container would be held in ⁶⁾customs for too long，but it all worked. I had meetings with the TanzanianGovernment， with the Department for InternationalDevelopment， the British Council. I told them I was goingback to England to ⁷⁾replicatethis and to get it started as a national ⁸⁾venture. At that time I waslaughed out of the room! They said，“Great， if you do it， but we’ll believeit when we see it”.

There were a lot of difficulties，but I think it’s workedbecause of ⁹⁾sheer determinationfrom me and the studentswho ¹⁰⁾originally set up the idea.That， combined with the skillsand experience that the largerprofessional organisations haveoffered us， has made it a success.

Funding was very difficultat first as well. Luckily， as an almost entirelystudent volunteer concept， the costs are low–itcosts about 50 pence to take one textbook to Tanzania–the same textbooks are worth about ￡20 ina bookshop in East Africa. Most of the money comesfrom students getting involved in ¹¹⁾fundraising activities like cnke selling and ¹²⁾skydiving.I act as a ¹³⁾mechanism that unites it all and gives it direction，but ¹⁴⁾ultimately it’s the students that do allthe work on the ground.

Expanding Our ¹⁵⁾Horizons

I get a lot of funny looks from my friends who’vegot“¹⁶⁾proper jobs” working in ¹⁷⁾accountancy firms or aslawyers earning plenty of mon-ey.But it’s really ¹⁸⁾ rewardingdoing something that has a ¹⁹⁾massive ²⁰⁾impact onhundreds of thousands of children across Tanzania. The ²¹⁾feedback we’ve had from school kids， teachers and seniorgovernment policy makers out there has been amazing.

The charity is at a really excit-ing stage right now.This summer we’re tak-ing125，000 textbooks over to Tanzania，which will directly help 100 schools. In October we’regoing to be operating out of universities in elevenareas across England. And I see no reason why we can’treplicate the same concept internationally. For example，the Australian national ²²⁾curriculum is very similarto ours and there’s a lot of book ²³⁾wastage there.

I would always encourage anyone to get involved involunteering. We educate pupils in UK schools to help usby ²⁴⁾badgering teachers and ²⁵⁾rallying around to makesure their books don’t end up in ²⁶⁾landfill， and to helpraise money.If they'renot interested in helping us，we also encourage them to think about helping anotherorganisation or to set up their own charity.I really want to encourage kids to embrace volunteering，not just to get ajob and improve their ²⁷⁾CV，but as something rewatdingfor themselves.

結下淵源

上大學前我曾經出外旅行，到訪過一些發展中國家，所以一直對國際發展很有興趣。當然，讀大學時我從未想過把它當作自己的事業。我的一位朋友曾經在坦桑尼亞教書，通過他我才知道坦桑尼亞的教育體系以英國體系為基礎，而那里需要大量教育資源。他決定把我們一幫人召集起來，看看能幫上什么忙。這個構思逐漸完善。那位朋友畢業之后，我決定和幾個朋友共同領導這個計劃，并開始認真地對待它。

克服困難

我召集了一隊志愿者，聯系了200所中學，一共收集到約4萬本教科書。我們對這些書進行分類，把質量最好的送到坦桑尼亞。我們送去了數學書、物理書、化學書、生物書和地理書，它們都很符合那邊的教學大綱。我們起初對如何把這些書運送并分發到坦桑尼亞各地毫無頭緒，但最終我成功帶領一隊志愿者學生完成了任務！

曾在大學期間是朋友的我們確實完成了許多人不相信我們能夠做到的事情。當時，很多人馬上對我們說這個計劃不會成功，我們不可能聯系到相關部門，沒辦法分派這些書，集裝箱也會被海關扣留很長時間等等，然而我們都一一克服了。