Aids Charity

Abhimanyu Bose Charity Work for “the U Foundation” 2007-2008…

“What a beauteous world we live in. It is a world of extreme joy and of uttermost pain and suffering. A world full of sunshine and rain, it is a world full of life, and sad to say, of painful death. It is full of inequalities of riches in the west and of hardship in the developing nations. There is a distinct lack of food, water and shelter, and an overpowering fight versus disease, pest and drought.” – Jay Tailor

Over the last year and a half, Abhi has been working with The U foundation Charity which “helps to advertize self sustainability through the provision of food, water and shelter and by way of endowing persons to achieve this by themselves.” It has it is administration base located Hinckley but it operates 5,000 miles south in four main emplacements in Zambia. It reached charitable status in 2006, and from then on has grown in size and has with great success been fundraising and aiding those less fortunate than ourselves even more.

1. How did you get involved in doing these events for charity?

I’ve always enjoyed helping people, and one of the easiest ways to help in such a way is to get stuck in, hands on, with a charity which you are steadily involved in. So The U foundation being so close to home, operating from Hinckley and Leicester provided a firm basis. I also play the Sitar, which parallel to the music aspect; I have been fundraising from charity events, festivals and respective performances to donate to The U Foundation. So a direct link was set up since then, and last year I had the chance to travel with my family and the charity to Zambia where it operates and see for myself, where the cash I raised was going to.

2. I bet that seeing original hand the effect the cash that you raised has, made the crusade worthwhile, and was it aroused in any way for you to recognise you've made such a difference?

When I landed in Zambia last August, it was an awful feeling. It was the introductory time I had stepped into Africa, original time underneath the equator, and it was a dissimilar sentiment which I experienced on my trip. I visited three out of the four areas where The U foundation operates, and for the primary time I experienced real poverty, children orphaned due to AIDs related diseases. For the basi time I realised how primary a glass of water and a grain of rice may be. I saw how much we in the UK take for granted, and it actually moved me and made me think. But the most awful thing I do not forget from the traveling is that everyone was smiling, all the kids were running around and having fun, with what little they had. Shoes made from plastic bottles, and a little football made of a stone wrapped around with old rags. Here I realised why I was raising cash for charity, and how the cash I would in the end raise would aid them in much more than one way. I visited a range of schools, ranging from kids as young as 2, to senior schools where a heap of children has aspirations to become lawyers and medics…but just lacked the instructional services, even though they gave their all to what they had. I spoke to one boy who was 15, “I walk to school with my brother and sister who are 4 and 6, they go to the preschool and I go to the middle school. We walk with regards to 5miles each morning to travel to school. Then we walk home and then we have to find firewood, cook, tidy up and sleep. Our parents passed away when we were young, and now we do all the work…but now I may come to school and study, I would like to become rich and help my brother and sister more…” I put myself in his shoes, and then realised how much hardship these kids go through. Come the blistering heat, the torrential rain or the unpleasantly cold nights, they don’t have parents; they don’t have brick houses with central heating and double glazed windows with blankets or just clothes to keep them warm. They live in mud-huts which are open, and often collapse in the torrential rain, these kids walk up to 17km a day just to fetch firewood and water to cook with and keep warm! These things we don’t see in Britain, but it’s out there in some more places just like this. It is actually moving to interact with these children who can’t complain, who will they complain to? They can’t give up, or they will die, and thrive on what they have, yet they miraculously keep a smile on their faces! The cash which I raised is going to aid in the development of the schools and the investment in Solar Cookers so that these villages may cook using the sun, rather than having to walk 17km. After all that long and deep explanation, yes it had a extraordinary aroused affect on not just me, but my whole family. I think it’s reasonable to say that after that experience, I look at life in a dissimilar view, remembering those children who I visited each day.

3. Whose idea was it anyway to catapult yourself off Victoria Falls Bridge all in the good name of charity?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCuiiKUZjDQ

Well since I found out that I was visiting Zambia on this charity trip, I wanted to do a bit of fundraising to donate for the cause. I told persons and I was gathering coppers for a week…ended up with with regards to £5 in coppers. I thought to myself…ok I need an event that I may do to raise a heap of “proper” money. I researched Zambia, and found that there was a Bungee Jump at the Victoria Falls Bridge, which incidentally happened to be the 2nd most eminent bungee from a base. As soon as I told people what I intended to do, I was raking donations, from £5 to £150! Eventually I ended up having raised around £1200 which Bablake helped raise £650.55. My target was around £300, so I was genuinely astonished to perceive how much funds had been raised. I felt rather good with regards to myself until I reached that dreaded day, when I in truth had to leap into thin air, fall 366ft with not one thing but a piece of “string” attached to my ankles!!!. It was unquestionably the most nerve-racking thing I have ever put myself up for, but it was unquestionably was the most intense experience I have encountered…besides a lot of numbers of people warning me of the dangers and just attempting to make me back out of it (especially my mum). I still went for it, I leaped off that platform, to hurl myself toward the River Zambezi rapids underneath me and bungee back up and down repeatedly till I was swinging upside down underneath the bridge. At this point I couldn’t tell which way was up or down since my head was so confused with the motion. When I got up to the bridge again…after finding my own two feet, I knew that I had accomplished what I had come out for. Knowing that all that cash which was raised was going to efficaciously be used for a cause I had devoted myself to, and back home I could prove that I had done what I had promised to do.

4. So tell me when it comes to London to Paris, all on a bike? That’s got to hurt…

In July this year, after the stress of exams was out, I embarked on a four day cycling trip from London to Paris which was 300 miles. I rode with 19 other persons and 4 help staff. We rode from London from 7am through Kent, into Dover on the initial day, in extreme cycling conditions, torrential rain, partially flooded roads, and gale strength winds over steep undulating hills reaching speeds of 45mph downhill. These 95 miles were the most demoralising percentage of our journey, yet we over came the weather, the miserable mood, and the one major incurred by a guy from Zambia!, he had a crushed shoulder after colliding and crashing into the floor on a downhill…he had to have prompt surgery and hence could not carry on the journey…also after the numerous punctures and we reached a cloudy Calais after catching the ferry at 5.30pm to reach at 8pm. A bed has never seemed so comfortable before that day. The second day was rain, but it was warmer, which boosted our moods, a somewhat easier, but still very wet 75 miles through field upon field from Calais to Abbeville. The third day the sun in the end came out, and off came the waterproofs…after the two days we had endured before, these next two days came as a breeze to us, with the sun blazing and the shades on, a very calm 70 miles route from Abbeville through little French villages to warm sunny Beauvai s. The last day was the most uplifting and energy filled day, “just ” 6 0 miles (compared to the basi day’s 95 miles) from Beauvais to Paris. Spirits were high, we had done it, we had endured 4 days of sore backsides, and tiresome legs. But we gave it our all on the last day; we regrouped four miles from the Eiffel Tower, we had reached the city we set out to reach! I did the last couple of miles on a “Raleigh Chopper Bike” being suicidal whilst riding round the Arc de Triomphe…but we didn’t care, we waved our flags, rung our bells, We had with great success cycled 300 miles in all kinds of conditions, losing a fellow cyclist to the elements but we made it to the Eiffel Tower. I was speechless when we arrived, phones were crazy, ringing parents and friends, then it hit me “I just finished cycling from London to Paris!” It was perchance the greatest sense of accomplishment for me…Although my “derrière” could only perchance be resembled by the “Japanese Flag” …yet I am still crazy sufficient to want to do it again…was a wondrous “Sunday lunch” type of ride…well...kind of!

5. So what does the future have in store for you, Mr. Bose?"

Oh…that’s a hard one…I think the simple answer is that going to have a year off from doing anything crazy…might actually use my summer to relax for once this coming year. Maybe in the future, I wouldn’t mind attempting to summit Mount Kilimanjaro. Or travelling to see the Inca trails would be interesting. But as ever, the charity work will carry on, and I will keep up the fundraising. You will still see my brother and I play music in charity concerts to raise cash for this charity and a great deal of others.

About the Author

Hi I'm Abz, a student in college. I love to travel, play music, and I want to make a divergence to people's lives.

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