Rebecca and Mike, two of our own board members, have recently celebrated their beautiful baby girl’s christening. Imogen is a gorgeous, little girl who will one day be told by her parents that a donation was made on her behalf to help less privileged children have a chance at having a better life.
The money donated will go towards The Reading Seed’s remedial teaching project.
Here is Rebecca’s story of why Mike and herself chose to become Board members of The Reading Seed and in turn chose to donate in honour of Imogen.
“The Reading Seed is a not for profit organisation that came into our lives through the connection of some very good friends, a passion for wanting to help others, particularly children in developing countries and a vision to do this through education.
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Mike and I believe that all children have a right to education and now with a daughter of our own appreciate even more how the right start to life means the world to a child’s future.
Over the past 7 years we have been fortunate through work assignments to travel to remote communities in Australia and overseas. One of the most confronting situations was arriving in West Africa where the poverty was so obvious, families living in tin sheds, poor sanitation, no access to running water, low literacy and high unemployment.. all very ‘normal’. Through such experiences we have reflected on how fortunate we are to live in Australia and developed a passion to make a difference to those less fortunate.
On our travels in South Africa our good friends and founders of The Reading Seed introduced us to Milly Jarvis. Milly founded The Village of Joy and is a full time volunteer there. At the village they operate under the charity The Changing Lives ministries. In this environment, 21 children who are orphaned or have been abused or neglected are now cared for and considered the lucky ones.
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| Imogen with Jill Gleeson of the Whitfords Anglican Community Church |
When we were given the opportunity to be on the board of The Reading Seed we relished the chance to get directly involved in supporting awesome causes such as the village and help amazingly generous people such as Milly and the 21 beautiful children she cares for as her own.
The Reading Seed has just turned two and the fundraising efforts so far have supported multiple projects for these children including providing a remedial teacher, education support programs and the sponsorship of tertiary studies for the older children. This is just the start of the venture, soon we hope to expand soon with our core focus being to help support and provide children with the basic right to education.
Bit by bit we hope to make a lasting difference, these children deserve more and we hope to assist to provide a great foundation to make the world a better place for them so they can aim for bigger dreams and break the poverty cycle.”