The Journey Begins!

This week marks the start of Beyond the Bike: The Next Revolution.

The first few days of this epic adventure will see a group of us putting on our lycra early Saturday morning and departing from the leafy suburbs of London to cycle 4 countries in 4 days - that’s (nearly) 400 miles...

Our team is joining Beyond the Bike for their warm up ride, cycling from London to Amsterdam.

Stuart and Claire will then be cycling more than 10,000km through Southern Africa and Asia raising money for Beyond Ourselves in Zambia and United World Schools in Asia.

Visit the Beyond The Bike website for more details about Stuart, Claire and their challenge. Or watch this fantastic 3 minute video:



Beyond the Bike is also an exciting educational project; following the route of natural resources from African mine to Asian factory, connecting classrooms and sharing resources worldwide. Using smartphones to record the journey they will be partnered with Fairphone, a mobile phone company that puts social values first, based in Amsterdam. From there they will fly to Uganda to start their big adventure.

It would be great if you could join us in giving Stuart and Claire an encouraging start to their ride and to raise funds for Beyond Ourselves and United World Schools. Click here to make a donation:

https://www.justgiving.com/teams/BTB-Amsterdam

What's coming up for Beyond Ourselves!?

These last two weeks of August always feel a little like the calm before the storm in the world of Beyond Ourselves. September to December is possibly the fullest part of the year for us. So I’ve been taking the opportunity this week to carefully plan my weekly work schedule for this coming term and prepare for all that’s ahead…

The first week of September brings exciting events for the teams in both continents!

In Europe, a group of us will be setting off on the first leg of the new Beyond the Bike adventure. We’ll be cycling from London to Amsterdam with Stuart and Claire, and then they will be heading down to Africa and eventually on to China! (Another group of us will be joining up with them again in Zambia in October).

And in Africa, the Zambia team will be arriving back from the UK refreshed and ready to start off the new school term with staff training days at each of our partner schools.

Then with 35 visitors coming on team to Zambia and 1000 children to interview, the rest of the term will just fly by!

For one night only…

Last night was a very special evening for Team Beyond Ourselves – for the first time ever we were all in the same room at the same time!

Diane, who joined our team in September last year and is based here in the UK overseeing all things finance, got to meet Dan, Melissa and Emily for the first time and put faces to the names and email addresses she knows so well!

And clearly Dan and Karen were very happy to be back together again!

                                         From left to right: Karen, Emily, Dan, Jodie, Diane and Melissa

A very quick run down on who’s who:

Karen - based in the UK, been with Beyond Ourselves since the very beginning in 2009, oversees all events and fundraising amongst other things

Emily – based in Zambia with her husband and kids, started in January of this year, works alongside the Zambian teachers in our partner schools developing education

Dan – based in Zambia, officially joined Beyond Ourselves in 2013, married to Melissa, oversees the ‘big picture’ in Zambia

Jodie – (that’s me!), mostly based in UK but in Zambia a couple of months of the year, oversees the ‘big picture’ generally and is the voice for Beyond Ourselves here in the UK

Diane – based in the UK office, been with Beyond Ourselves for almost a year now, oversees the finance and child sponsorship admin in the UK

Melissa – based in Zambia with Dan and their boys, has been part of Beyond Ourselves since 2009, oversees the child sponsorship operations in Zambia and community connections there, as well as all of our design work too

Hopefully, that gives you an idea of what our team do, but it can't capture who they are. I'm not one to brag generally, but as I said last night I think I get to work with the best team on the planet! They are committed, passionate, hard-working and fun! And it is my honour to work alongside them.

Here's the only serious photo we managed to capture!

Clean water for all three schools in Zambia!

'Tis the season for holidays and most of the Beyond Ourselves team are enjoying some time off over August - resting and relaxing, rejuvenating and refreshing!

It's HOT where I am today, kind of steamy hot, and so I am drinking glasses and glasses of bottled water to stay hydrated. And as I have sat drinking my clean, cool water I am so thankful for it!

And it has reminded me how grateful I am that over these past 18 months or so we have seen bore holes dug at all three of our partner schools. Greater Joy, Janna and Kawama now all have access to water on the school site.

Water that is not only refreshing on a hot day, but clean water that is safe for them to drink, cook with and wash in.

Life changing.

Not just for the school children and staff, but for the surrounding communities too who also have access to the water from a community tap at each school.

Community transforming.

If you helped make this happen, I raise my glass (of water) and say thank you! 

School's Out For Summer!

The end of July is here and our partner schools in Zambia are closing for the month of August. It’s not the end of their school year, like here in the UK, they have one more term to go, but they do have a month off :)

So, as our teachers at Janna, Greater Joy and Kawama School enjoy this quieter month ahead I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to them for all the incredible work they do each term. Some of the teachers have been at these schools for several years, a few from even before Beyond Ourselves started partnering with the schools and helping to provide a salary for them.

Their passion for teaching, for giving these children an opportunity to learn is inspiring and we are truly grateful to be working alongside them.

Thank you Teachers!

Here are a few pics of our wonderful teachers!

Beyond Ourselves Goes to Canada!

One of our team, Melissa, is from Winkler, Manitoba and is currently back there with Dan and their boys visiting friends and family for a few weeks after almost two years of living in Zambia. (And for those of you who know me, I’m never one to say no to a trip, so when Dan and Melissa invited me over to Canada for a week, the flights were booked and to Winkler I went!)

And we’re also never ones to miss an opportunity for an event, so this past Sunday we held a Beyond Ourselves fundraiser in Winkler Park!

Summer in the Prairies is usually beautifully sunny, but this Sunday was not! It was chilly and very wet – but we went ahead anyway (we were even prepared to do a ‘Drive thru’ service if the weather didn’t improve!).  A big thank you to the volunteers who put on their waterproof jackets and came to help us by serving the delicious food…

And a huge thank you to Gary and Connie Spenst and the Spenst Bros for supporting us, putting on the event and providing the amazing food. If you’ve not had a Spenst burger, you’re missing out!

Despite the weather, people came, ate the delicious food (including homemade desserts donated by friends and family) and gave generously to Beyond Ourselves.

The money raised is going to support the feeding programmes that we run at our partner schools in Zambia, providing meals every school day for nearly 1000 children. People were free to donate as much or as little as they liked and we have been overwhelmed with the generosity of everyone. Over $7600 has been given so far. That’s the equivalent of close to 19,000 meals that can be served in Zambia, or 760 children’s food for one month! Thank you to everyone who donated, we are so grateful for your support, kindness and generosity. We hoped you enjoyed the food, we know the children in Zambia will enjoy their school meals!

Thank you Winkler! I hope to see you again some time!

Beyond Ourselves Golf Day

Last Friday we held our 6th annual Golf Day and party at Bush Hill Park Golf Club. With 20 teams playing in the day and over 170 evening guests, it was yet again an amazingly well supported day! Thank you to everyone who came.

The golfers had varying success but at least the sun was shining and the Pimms tent was open! Congratulations to our winning team; Irene Dickinson, Sue Collins, Pauline Platt and Janet Andrews who came in with 93 points. Well done ladies!

It wasn’t all about the golf, the Pimms, the food and the amazing band – Jazzbomb!

For those of you who know us well, you know that we are journeying with our partner schools in Zambia towards self-sustainability, both educationally and financially. Educationally, we are currently focusing on the teachers’ professional development and raising the levels of teaching and learning in the schools. Financially, we are developing social enterprises around each school community to provide skills training, employment and finance that can help sustain the school in the future.
The auction in the evening was not only highly entertaining (thanks Ben!) but also raised £14,000, which will go a long way to helping meet the continued everyday need of the schools as well as push in to new social enterprises within the communities.

Thank you again to everyone who came and supported us, and to those who helped make the day happen!
Thank you!