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UCNL Charity Skydive for Ghana

Posted: November 25, 2020

UCNL staff and students are planning a charity skydive to enable school children in Ghana to gain access to clean drinking water.

The daring members of staff and UCNL students will freefall at 125mph above North Lincolnshire in January 2021. Gillian Reid (UCNL Head of Department Health, Life and Social Science) is raising money for a project in Ghana, after previously organising a week-long trip with students from the UCNL in Scunthorpe in October 2019. The plan is to make a return visit to the same school after realising their need for vital essentials.

Gillian said, “Having seen children pull water up from a well and drink from a dirty container we wanted to raise money to add a water filter and pump to the well and also to add some hand washing facilities to the school.”

The addition of such facilities will have a massive impact on the children’s health and hygiene and the more money raised the more hand washing facilities can be provided. Having already raised £300 from selling face masks, made and donated by UCNL colleague Joan Slocombe, Gillian has agreed to the skydive which will help raise more money to support the project and is hoping to raise £1500.

“When the students suggested a skydive to raise money for the school my initial thoughts were, no way! I have become scared of heights as I have become older, but after some persuasion for some reason I agreed as I knew the positive impact it would have on the children at the school! After agreeing I then found I needed to lose weight, so have been dieting since earlier in the year so I can go ahead with my promise. I am now feeling slightly excited but still actually more terrified! Sometimes I cannot believe I agreed,” said Gillian.

This fundraising will enable four members of staff and sixteen students to travel to Ghana in June 2021 where they will use the money to buy the materials needed and participate in the work to add the facilities as well as support the teaching and learning in the classrooms. 

Gillian said, “I am looking forward to taking students to the school again as whilst they were pushed outside their comfort zone, they developed confidence, team building skills and many more employability skills. It really is a chance of a lifetime for these students.” 

If anyone would like to sponsor Gillian for the skydive, they can do so by visiting the just giving page at https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/gillian-reid-4?utm_term=rRzeKM9Ge