On the 10th October my daughter (Natasha Kulinski) and I (Julia Pittman) will set off to Morocco to participate in a charity walk!
We will be walking the distance of 2 marathons across 2 days with Action Challenge. The walk follows the Draa Valley in the Sahara Desert.
The Charity
Recently I met Gemma Oaten (Ex Emmerdale actress) at a networking event organised by the Wandsworth Chamber.
Gemma told us the story of how she navigated mental health services as a child and how her family struggled. As a result of their experience Gemma and her family set up SEED.
SEED is a small charity with big ambitions. They have created a toolkit for schools to help support and educate teaching staff.
The tool kit is currently to be used in Key Stage 3 & 4 and there are plans to develop this further into a tool kit for primary schools.
The tool kit comes with lesson plans, work sheets and videos. But of course all this takes money to develop. The money we raise will help this very important piece of work.
Why am I doing this?
I have always tried to do an annual charity event. I feel it’s important to give back where you can. As a family we used to donate our time to Rock Corps; Give, Get Given which was a brilliant initiative.
Recently though I have become disillusioned with large charities and had decided to stop. Personally I have to really believe in what I am doing to be able to ask people to part with their hard earned cash.
That changed when I met Gemma and listened to her story. As a mother and grandmother of children with mental health challenges I know first-hand how difficult life can be. Sometimes life is really hard and having a focus on something other than work and mental health is really important.
Hence this walk !
Our work family at Beaver have been truly supportive of this endeavour and will be cheering us on from the Wandsworth Business Awards which coincidentally falls right in the middle of our walk. As a company Beaver values corporate social responsibility and encourages employees to give back to their communities.
Thanks for reading ! Wish us both luck !
