My Story

I am so proud to have made it on to the 17-person fundraising team that will embark on an exciting and challenging adventure in Nepal, in October 2024.

Over the course of 16 days, I will spend the first week working on the construction of a vocational centre which is 600km west of Nepal in Dhangadhi; an establishment to help Nepalese teenagers further their education and skills upon leaving school. This will involve working on the building site at whatever stage of development it has reached at that point -  a huge change to my usual 9-5 as Operations Manager at Pentelow Wealth Management, a Founding and Principal Partner of St. James's Place.  

The Nepalese governement have gifted the Nepalese Youth Foundation the land for the Vocational Centre with the plan that over a 6 year time period the locals will then take over ownership. A HAND UP RATHER THAN A HANDOUT. 

Nepal’s high unemployment and lack of skilled human resource are amongst the country’s biggest challenges with youth unemployment accounting for 35.8% of the total workforce. Most children leave school (which is not compulsory in Nepal), with little prospect of a job or further education.

This leads to many young people leaving Nepal seeking employment in low paid jobs in the Middle East and other countries where labour is cheap and conditions intolerable. They can be away for months at a time, trying to earn enough to support a family back home. The alternative is to scratch a living in Nepal with very poor income prospects. Nepal is amongst the least developed countries in the world, the poorest in South Asia with negative growth and low overall employment rates. 

This new school will add to the first Vocational Centre opened in 2017, where over 1200 young people have so far received training within useful trades like carpentry, electrical, plumbing, aluminium fabrication, welding and tailoring. They can then return to their villages and start a business, boosting their local economies. Those that have attended the Vocational Centre are able to earn 3 x more than if they hadn't.

This “foundations to finishing touches” scheme is an important project to be involved with and the SJP team who went last year, working at a different centre, were told that they had saved the local builders 84 days manual labour in the time they were there.

Every pound I raise will be matched by the St. James’s Place Charitable Foundation (SJPF) who will donate the monies to other worthy causes. The cost of my trip will be covered by Pentelow Wealth Management (for which I am very grateful) meaning that every pound raised will go directly to this charity.  

The school will accept commercial assignments and as a result will partly self-fund its operation. The school will be staffed by full time, qualified instructors, and is run by our partner NGO (non-governmental organisation) in Nepal, the Nepal Youth Foundation.

Throughout our time on site, the team and I will be accommodated close by in a modest but comfortable base camp consisting of individual tents; a mess tent for eating and socialising; a cook tent; toilet tent; and shower tent.

Each day we will work on site, supervised by local builders in a safe environment, and once the day is over will enjoy campfires, comfortable beds in single tents, showers and good food. 

We will be working extremely hard on the building site in the heat and humidity of the Kathmandu Valley.  This is no walk in the park - there will be hard graft involved and no doubt a few blisters! In order to physically complete this challenge I will spend the next year increasing my fitness and strength with the rest of the team in the Lake District and at home in my own time. I have already started this with walking the Yorkshire Three Peaks - 24 miles and 5,000ft in under 12 hours in September, walks on Ilkley Moor, Ingleborough and Skiddaw.

Once the five days on site are over, we will board a flight west to Pokhara, a beautiful city set on the side of Lake Phewa, that will serve as our starting point for a trek to Poon Hill the next day.

The trek across the Annapurna range will take approximately four to five days with each day consisting of six to eight hours of walking, up to a maximum height of 3,210m. The group will stay in local tealodges within some of the beautiful villages along the way.

I will be in Nepal for two weeks, with the experience hopefully providing many highs (and hopefully not too many lows) and the ability, through your donations, to contribute to Nepal's economic progress.  

All donations will be gratefully received and you can be assured they are going to a very worthy cause.