Facing The World

I wanted to share with you a little story about a charity that I support and am rather in awe of to be honest.

The said charity is Facing The World it was founded as a result of the experiences of the late Martin Kelly, Norman Waterhouse and their colleagues from London. As craniofacial surgeons they became frustrated while volunteering abroad that children that they could have helped in the UK were being doomed to a life of pain and abuse as a result of limited facilities and the absence of the rest of their multidisciplinary team. The charity was founded by Norman Waterhouse  and the late Martin Kelly whose beautiful wife, the actress Natascha McElhone is still very hands on and involved with the charity today.

I was invited to a Welcome Home party last week for the lovely actor Bertie Portal & his trainer James Cash who have just rowed across the stormy seas of The Atlantic and raised around £400,000 for this amazing charity. I headed off down to London and checked into the hugest hotel I have seen for a while near Marble Arch with a reception area resembling a warehouse!! I jumped in a cab and headed over to Hamilton's Gallery where there was a reasonably small gathering of close family and friends all there to celebrate the safe return of these two incredibly brave men and to thank them for the money they have raised for the charity, I felt very flattered to be invited. 

It really did put everything into perspective once more, even though I, myself have suffered a life changing facial disfigurement, I am fortunate enough to live in a country where we do have a cranio facial team who actually specialise in this area and are so capable and willing to help whereas these poor children are unable to gain access to the specialists they need and their lives are clouded by bullying and abuse within their own communities.

When I left the party last week, although one of my  businesses FootballGiftWorld  is committed to helping the charity by way of raising funds through profits raised to help fund a child coming over for surgery, I felt I wanted to do something on a more personal level. I decided to start a JustGiving page up and as I am due to go to London for more surgery myself on my eye socket to rebuild it, I thought I would "Get Fit For Surgery" and lose 2-3 stone in weight and raise some money for the charity in the process! I have had a handful of donations already and am hopeful that as I share this with people they too will donate what they can to this amazing charity who are truly changing the lives of children and putting a smile back on their little faces!

If you would like to donate to my cause and help me to lose my 3 stone in weight to Get Fit For Surgery please visit my JustGiving page here and also visit FootballGiftWorld.co.uk too!

Thank you so very much!

Love Shari x