My challenge is to raise £3,250 to go towards a school building project in small village in the region of Solu Khumbu in Nepal. The money raised will pay for the locally sourced building materials for the school. This school will improve the quality of children and young people’s lives through their education, making their future brighter.

The charity Classrooms in the Clouds was set up to support the Nepalese children who are currently receiving an inadequate education, or in many cases no education at all. This could be due to many reasons such as social, financial, practical and geographical. Most of the children are out working, taking care of younger siblings, elderly or disabled relatives. There may be no school in their village and if there is, it may only go to the end of primary school with no high school nearby. The only option for many is boarding school in Kathmandu, which is simply unaffordable and impractical for all but a small minority. Attendance at school fades out as the children get older. We need to provide incentives, facilities and teachers to ensure children remain students for as long as possible.

Here are some statistics:

• Nepal is the 12^th most illiterate country in the world with an illiteracy rate 54.9% for men and 72% for women
  
• 47%of girls of primary school age do not attend school
  
• 77.6% of the population live below the poverty line
  
• 34% of children 5-14 years work
  
• 73% of rural population have ‘unimproved’ sanitation facilities
  
• Adult obesity-1.4%!!
  

Myself and 19 other Fire Cadets from Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service have been selected to raise £3,250 each for the project. At the end of the fundraising we will be given the opportunity to travel over to Nepal to see the building project in its final stages. We will help to complete the project and to hand it over to the village.