Wednesday 2 December 2009

The Alpine Fund

I have hung up the cyling boots for a couple of months and have settled into Bishkek, the capital of the smallest 'stan, Kyrgzstan. At present i am teaching english 4 times a week. Twice to the children who work at the markets in Bishkek and twice a week to boys who have left one of orphanges and are being helped out by the Alpine fund to settle into thier new lives.

The organisation i am working for is called the Alpine Fund. It was set up by an American mountainer several years ago. The idea was to use the amazing mountains that make up 90% of Kyrgzstan's land area to teach vulnerable children some life skills. The children come from several orpahanges around the city. The organistaion also work with two centres for the protection of children. These are located at the two main markets and support children who's familys work at the markets.

As mentioned above i am helping out by teaching them English. This costs very little, other than my time. Ideally however we would like to return to the original aim of the organisation which was to challange and grow the children using the mountains and valleys around Bischkek. This however does cost some money. Fuel for the bus, food for the kids etc. At present the Alpine fund is flying by the proverbiable seat of its pants with only irregular trips to the mountains for a small number of the children.


If you are interested in seeing the changes the alpine fund has made to some of the kids lives you can go to the website and read some of there stories. You can also follow the link if you wish to support the work that i and the team of other volunteers are doing here. http://www.alpinefund.org/.


Cheers
emrys