When you fundraise for Sport Relief, you’re doing something truly incredible. That’s because all the money you raise is spent by Comic Relief to help poor and vulnerable people, both here at home and overseas
Here are a few personal stories which show just some of the ways people’s lives can be changed thanks to Comic Relief cash.
Ram was only six years old when an older boy from his village invited him along on a trip to see the sights of Delhi.
But when they got to the big city, Ram was taken straight to a restaurant and put to work wiping tables. He was too young to even understand that he should be paid for this.
The older boy soon vanished, leaving Ram alone and penniless on the streets of Delhi. He had to sleep on the pavement, so he was an easy target for the police who often harrassed him.
Luckily, one day, Ram came across the Butterflies Night Shelter. There he was given a safe place to stay and could start learning to read and write.
He still worked at the restaurant but was now getting paid so he kept his wages in the Butterflies project’s innovative street bank - a place for children who live or work on the streets to keep their hard-earned money safe.
After six months at the Butterflies Education centre, Ram managed to get into school and could stop working full-time.
Ram has gone on to become a child volunteer manager at Butterflies. He encourages other kids to use the bank, as he knows how important it is to have a safe place for your wages.
Thanks to cash raised through Sport Relief, Ram has a much safer life, he’s getting an education and is working towards a much brighter future.
Geanyne and her family didn’t only work on a landfill site – they had to live there too.
Every morning, she stepped out of her house and straight onto the rubbish dump to collect old bottles and cans with her younger sister Solange. They did it all to help their mum out, who was desperately trying to scrape together enough money to feed her family.
For Geanyne, it was worth it if it meant her much-loved baby brother would be safe from illness.
Unfortunately, Geanyne and her sister were not so lucky - they would regularly get injuries and infections because of where they lived and worked.
Thankfully, Geanyne found out about Passage House, an amazing centre for children who live or work on the streets.
There, she and her sister were given food, medical help, and a place to have a hot shower – as well as the chance to learn new skills and take pride in themselves. Geanyne spent hours every afternoon learning to read and write, and started to make friends with other young girls her age.
Thanks to support from Passage House, she doesn’t go out waste collecting anymore – she goes to school instead. The project has also helped her family get a government grant to live in a house in a less hazardous area.
The cash you raise for Sport Relief is not only helping children turn their own lives around, it’s giving whole families and communities the chance of a much safer and brighter future.
After the death of her mother when she was just ten years old, Lebo was faced with a heartbreaking reality – would she have to give up school and her dream of becoming a pharmacist to find work and support her family?
Lebo and her three younger siblings ended up staying with their grandmother in Tembisa, an extremely poor area of Johannesburg, and there was very little money for them to all live off.
Without her mother there, Lebo had to take over washing her siblings’ clothes, cooking for them and helping them with homework. And it felt more and more each day like she would have to quit school to find a way to bring some extra money in.
Luckily, before she made this devastating decision, a project worker from Bishop Simeon Trust – which provides support to orphaned children living in Tembisa - gave her an alternative.
Rosaline, the project worker, now visits Lebo and her family regularly to give them much-needed support. They get care packages which sometimes mean the difference between eating and not eating. They also get grants to bring in some much-needed extra cash.
As well as this vital practical support, Rosaline also helps Lebo cope with her grief at losing her mother.
All this support has meant that thankfully, Lebo has been able to stay in school and keep working to realise her dreams.
Thanks to the money you help to raise for Sport Relief, children like Lebo can stay in school where they belong and help to rewrite the future for their whole family.
Street and Working Children
Only a year ago, Connor was a hyperactive boy who was bullied at school - singled out for having learning difficulties. A boy in his class tormented him so much that Connor would come home in tears, and beg not to be made to go back.
Connor’s mum, Diane, takes care of him and his three siblings on her own, and she was struggling to cope with it all.
She also worried about Connor falling in with a bad crowd in Moss Side in Manchester - where gangs and violent crime are rife.
Thankfully, one day, Diane heard about the Boxing Club run by firemen at Moss Side Fire Station.
The boxing and fitness training there meant Connor finally had an outlet for his excess energy. The coaches saw he had real talent and boosted his confidence - which also helped him cope with the bullying at school.
Because he found the support he needed at such a young age, Connor has every chance of having a happy and healthy future. His self-esteem has shot up and he feels he can really do something in life, which could stop him getting lured into gang life in the future.
Thanks to the cash you help to raise for Sport Relief, kids like Connor have somewhere to go where they can learn new skills, build their confidence and get the help they need to stay on the right track in future.
Despite being only 23, Kel has the bone density of a 70-year-old. That’s because she’s been battling an eating disorder for years, leaving her in the early stages of osteoporosis.
Kel started off just skipping meals, but by the time she started university, she was barely eating at all.
On her way to an exam when she was 18, she found she’d fractured her wrist and couldn’t write. It wasn’t until a year later that one of her lecturers became concerned and told her to see a doctor.
Kel simply didn’t believe the doctor when she said that she may be anorexic. She thought anorexia was about wanting to be skinny, but Kel had only ever wanted control over part of her life – in this case, her eating habits.
She started to read up on anorexia and found the BEAT website. It told her lots more about eating disorders and helped her see that she was not alone.
In time, Kel managed to start eating properly. Her local college even invited her to talk about how to recognise eating disorders - and she now works as a lecturer there.
She also talks to people about eating disorders on the BEAT website and has become an ambassador for the organisation.
Thanks to the cash you raise for Sport Relief, young people like Kel can get the help they need to recognise and start to deal with problems they may be hiding, even from themselves.
Eddie was just 51 when he was diagnosed with dementia. He first noticed something was wrong at work. As a taxi driver, Eddie knew the local streets like the back of his hand, but when a customer asked to go to an address he knew very well, he suddenly had no idea how to get there. He realised he needed to see a doctor.
Brain scans showed that Eddie had Alzheimer’s, a condition he had never even heard of. Almost immediately, he was unable to work because his licence was taken away – leaving him angry and confused.
After his diagnosis, Eddie became increasingly depressed and withdrawn, which put extra strain on his relationship with his wife Sue.
Sue realised they needed help and found a local support group. Just two days later, a support worker from Alzheimer’s Bradford came out to see them.
It was the lifeline they needed. Eddie and Sue now have a family support worker who helps them deal with everything from their finances to their personal problems - which has helped keep their marriage strong. Eddie and Sue even get to go on holidays in the UK thanks to Alzheimer’s Bradford – something they could no longer afford to do otherwise.
Thanks to the money you raise for Sport Relief, Eddie and Sue have the support to cope with his illness, and can look forward to their future together, knowing they are not facing it all alone.
UK Local Projects
When Proscovia’s little boy, Nicholas, got violently ill in the middle of the night, she did what most mothers would do - she got him to a doctor as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, in Proscovia’s case that meant trekking for an hour and a half to the nearest hospital with her two-year-old son strapped to her back.
When she got there, the staff told her that Nicholas desperately needed a drip and blood transfusion as he had severe malaria.
But the hospital didn’t have a drip or any transfusion equipment. For Nicholas to survive, his mother would have to get him to another hospital 20 miles away.
Proscovia didn’t have any money to pay for the trip, so she raced back home to sell what little livestock she had. In desperate panic, she sold a chicken to a neighbour for just £1, hoping to raise enough to save her son.
But even as she raced back to the hospital, it was already too late - little Nicholas had died from malaria. His young life had been cut short by this preventable and treatable disease.
The money you raise for Sport Relief could mean mothers across Africa have simple tools like mosquito nets as well as the knowledge of how to use them correctly to protect their children – which could make stories like Proscovia’s a thing of the past.
Watching your toddler play and learn about the world around them should be a happy time for any mother. But Rosetta couldn’t enjoy watching her 14 month old son, Joseph, grow up because she lived with the constant fear of him contracting malaria - a disease that’s already taken the lives of two of her children.
Kids under the age of five are most at risk of dying from malaria - and both of Rosetta’s children were the same age as Joseph when they caught the killer disease.
Sam was treated in hospital when he first got very sick, but the disease flared up again shortly after, and his body was just too weak to pull through.
A year later, Rosetta rushed her daughter Lillian to hospital. But tragically, it was too late – Lillian also lost her life.
Rosetta was devastated and felt utterly powerless – she simply couldn’t stop the mosquitoes, that carry the disease, from biting her children as they slept.
But, thankfully, that’s not the end of the story.
Last year, five of the brave celebrities who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for Comic Relief went to Uganda to hand out half a million mosquito nets. And Rosetta was one of the first to receive enough life-saving nets to protect her entire family.
The money you raise for Sport Relief 2010 is spent by Comic Relief to transform lives. That means, your cash could provide families, like Rosetta’s, with mosquito nets and information on how best to use them - giving mums, dads and their kids a fighting chance against this deadly disease.
The Mbabazi family live in rural Uganda - where malaria is rife. They can only grow enough food to eat, with little left over to sell to buy anything extra.
The family regularly contract malaria, so they have to spend what little money remains on expensive life-saving medicine.
Last year, they were lucky enough to get a mosquito net to protect the two youngest children, Elvanisi and Alice, from being bitten by malaria-infected mosquitoes while they sleep. The net has been so effective that neither has had malaria for over six months.
Older sister Juliet isn’t so lucky. With no bed net, she still gets malaria regularly, making her weak and unable to attend school or help out on the family farm.
But that's not the end of the story. A massive operation will soon be launched in western Uganda to distribute over half a million nets. There will be one net for every two people - so in future, every member of the Mbabazi family will be protected.
Nets alone can’t protect people all the time from getting malaria, so we’re also investing in local health services to make sure that front-line staff can diagnose and treat malaria quickly and efficiently.
The cash you raise through Sport Relief will give local health workers the training and supplies they need for a quick and reliable diagnosis, and life-saving drugs so children survive long enough to reach a hospital. This means that the whole of the Mbabazi family - and the community they live in - will have the chance of a much brighter future.
Malaria
Neil "rowed" to the challenge!
Neil Walbran, 42, from Manchester raised an amazing £55 when he rowed 10k for Sport Relief. We "Neil" before him for his fantastic efforts! That cash could pay for a bicycle ambulance to transport pregnant women to hospital in Tanzania, giving mother and baby a better chance of surviving.
£50
Helen's "high-rise" to the challenge!
Don't try this at home! Helen decided to rise really high for her challenge - she abseiled 130 feet down a building for Sport Relief, raising over £180! That money could pay to run a helpline for six hours which supports women living with domestic violence, so they have somewhere to turn for help.
£100
The Spencers "roamed" to the challenge!
The Spencer family hit the road together and walked 6 miles in the Forest of Dean for Sport Relief. They forgot their sore feet when they raised a fantastic £253! That money could pay for five sewing machines for women living in poverty in Uganda, so they can earn an income and feed their families.
£250
