We started our fundraising a year ago today, climbing Ben Nevis, which makes it hard to comprehend the impact a decision we made in November 2012 is now influencing our lives and decisions as we sit waiting in Newcastle.
We spoke last night about how proud we were of what we had achieved given limited resources, a target of £10,000 to support us and no experience on how to start the "Newcastle to Brazil" journey. We started with a year in Brazil from January, but if truth be known since we decided in 2012 Brazil has been a major part of our lives whether that was fundraising, partying, with friends and in sport. We've both developed as people and made new friends along the way. It does become difficult to say goodbye or see you soon after spending time with people, but we've learnt to deal with that and soon that will be us. You realise the people who care about you and those who are interested in the idea behind our story. Luckily we've made some good friends to help us settle into Brazil.
We've had our fair share of media interest which is brilliant, maybe it might inspire people to take a step in the direction they would like. We can draw our inspiration from the people who are able to raise £40,000+ for charities like Tiny Lives and Childrens Heart Foundation. It is all inspirational!
We came up with the idea of a Brazil Day and yesterday we held our 10th at Star of the Sea Primary school. We raised about £600, but with it being a last minute decision we didn't know what to expect. I had personally forgotten what the experience was like, not only for us delivering, but for the pupils and students from International House Newcastle. They are literally celebrities for the day with children swarming around them to get an autograph and ask questions about their country. For us it is nice to see the young people enjoy the day taking part in different activities that seems to be catching the imagination of the schools as they are now recommending it to others!
Our VISA is still in limbo as we wait for it to be processed which is proving difficult especially as we both finished work in expectation to go. They say that happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them. So we should have left on 29th January, but instead on the 7th February we had 455 children engaged in a Brazil Day. Positivity!
We have heard about the stadium situation in Curitiba and hope that by the 18th February they have came to a safe decision. Whether they hold World Cup games or not we couldn't really have a Project Curitiba and not be based in the city. Unfortunately if they can't hold the games then maybe we can come up with a solution, we've already came up with random ideas before and it has turned out to be quite good. 10 Brazil Days and 3894 pupils engaged.
It's been a fantastic year for us, a pleasure to meet all the people we have and hopefully we've left a lasting memory of Newcastle for you to remember.
The waiting game continues for us and Curitiba. Ate logo!
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