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So it's been a while since I have posted but I've been so busy saying my goodbyes and getting everything sorted...the day is finally here!! This evening we are flying to Dubai then on to Uganda! I'm so excited to see everyone again and begin our adventure!

I have my diary and camera to document everything and there is also a picture here of a lovely good luck card from my beautiful friend Emma. The last picture is of my cute little phone which will hopefully hold charge for about a week! 

I will be blogging lots when I get back but for now, à bien·tôt!

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Inspiration...

You know you've found your passion when one Ted Talk about it makes you take to Amazon and buy everything on there by the speaker. 

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In this video Vikram Patel discusses the ridiculously inadequate ratio of mental health care professionals in the developing world. He puts forward his idea to solve this which reflects medical models of training local people to deliver complex interventions. This is known as 'task shifting'. He gives three examples of task shifting experiments in mental health care across the developing world. Most notably for me he mentions that in rural Uganda, Paul Bolton and colleagues demonstrated, utilising local people, that they could deliver Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depression. Their RCT showed a 90% recovery rate of those receiving this intervention! 

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So first of all I just want to say I'VE MADE MY FUNDRAISING TARGET!!! I'm so pleased to have finally done it, so many people have supported me and helped me to get there! The pictures here show a day in the life of my Live Below The Line challenge, which was more of a challenge than I expected - mainly due to caffein withdrawal. I am now less than a month away from jetting off to Uganda and I cannot wait. 

Restless have sent information out about becoming a development advocate. I am yet to properly look into it (I'm about to do so) and I'm not really sure whether I'm cut out for it. I think it involves a lot of public speaking which I am not the biggest fan of! Plus I'm not sure how much I will need to be involved in after returning from Uganda and I already have a lot planned for next year at Uni! Watch this space! 

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So I took my five pounds, I went to Morrison's and this is what I bought! I got pictures of the receipts to prove it, and here is what I will be eating from monday to friday of the coming week. I also have three exams next week so it's definitely going to be a challenge as eating is my favourite form of revision procrastination! Definitely worth a sponsor if you ask me! www.justgiving.com/bethan-marsh1

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Here is a picture if the article that was put in the Rotherham Advertiser about me doing the Live Below the Line challenge! The dates have changed but its still really exciting!!! 

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More about this programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wgq0l Hans Rosling's famous lectures combine enormous quantities of public data with a sport's ...

Heres the video from Hans Rosling showing the development of countries over a 200 year period!

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Here are some of the pictures from our training 'weekend' (which was actually a tuesday-thursday). It was so lovely for people to meet and get to know each other before our adventure to Uganda. Everyone got on famously and I am so excited to see them all again (and those people who couldn't make it) in June! 

Jo, Christina and Sarah the facilitators were amazing and engaging. We did lots of great activities which made us feel much more prepared for what we have ahead of us. I took lots of notes but here's just a quick summary to give you a flavour of what we did: 

On the wednesday we did a quick quiz in teams on what we already know about ICS and Restless Development. We then talked about the three-legged stool of ICS which focuses on; creating active citizens, personal development and development impact. Next we talked about the different stages of and ICS volunteer's journey and Restless' approach to international development. Then we had a country specific presentation and a Skype call with Richard who works for Restless in Uganda. After that, we discussed what we believe international development is and learned about relative and absolute poverty. Then we watched a really interesting video on Gap Minder by Hans Rosling which I will post on here after this! We also had a visit from Kim, a returned volunteer from Uganda who gave a great presentation and answered our many questions! Finally we talked about things that we could be doing on placement to prepare for our action at home and the challenges of being a development worker. 

On thursday we started off with cultural awareness exercises and talked about culture as a concept. We then went over Restless Development's code of conduct and had our medical briefing. Next we had a non formal education session and then looked at personal wellbeing and how to look after ourselves and each other. Finally we had a session on responsibly communicating our experience! 

This description has definitely missed things out and doesn't express how varied and interesting the sessions were. Time really flew because we were having fun! We developed into a great team and it's given me even more excitement and enthusiasm for what's to come! 

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Here is a very exciting e-mail I have had from someone at the Rotherham Advertiser! I have sent him the picture from my JustGiving page as I could not think of anything worse than having a photo set up! Not to mention that I'm back in Exeter very soon!! Watch this space though!

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Today I had the last of my vaccines and collected my anti-malarials! It's all feeling a bit more real! Very excited for my training next tuesday then a lot less excited for deadlines and exams coming up but the end of first year is in sight nonetheless! 

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So I've been to Ireland to scatter my Uncles ashes and haven't really been doing much prep for the past week - but today I got back on it with my 'Bath bomb making workshop' at Lush in Meadowhall! Everyone there was so helpful and we raised £95 - which means I have now raised 69% of my target!! 

Here are some pictures of the lovely people of Sheffield making bath bombs and with their tom bola prizes - I also left an ICS poster pinned on Lush's notice board to encourage other people to get involved!! 

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So the car boot sale has been great today! Me and my dad were up and out of the house by six so as to get a good spot! It wasn't too busy at first and the weather wasn't great but it soon picked up and the sun came out! We were both very tired by the time we got back but it was well worth it as we made £85-40 in total! Which takes me nicely over my halfway mark! 

It was great to chat to people about why we were there and I even met someone who lived in Jinja for three years!

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MyVote2014.eu aims to inform young and first-time voters about key decisions taken by the European Parliament, by showing what is at stake in key policy areas and by demonstrating that EU politics can be both interesting and fun.

This is a very interesting test to take - It's also great that you can see the way individual MEPs have voted on these issues - I am appalled that Nick Griffin voted no on every issue, including whether the EU should encourage measures to tackle homophobia, except for whether fishing should be restricted to protect stocks. Then again, UKIP voted no on ALL measures - I'll be sure to use my vote to try to make sure neither of these parties gets a seat on the next EU Parliament! 

This is just one of the things that I was introduced to at the advocacy workshop today! 

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Here are a few photos from the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) advocacy workshop at the Methodist Central Hall in Manchester today.

The brownies went down a storm! Everyone seemed to really enjoy them!

The workshop itself was extremely interesting and has definitely mobilised me to consider what actions I may take to have my say on EU policy regarding Comprehensive Sexual Health, as well as to get involved in the Students Stop Aids campaign when I'm back in Exeter! 

Everyone there was lovely and it was wonderful to meet lots of other young people wanting to learn and act in the interest of themselves and their peers! 

To top it off the brownie sale raised £17! I'm looking forward to a sunny car boot sale tomorrow! The early bird catches the worm! 

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Getting ready for the car boot! 

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A sneak peak of tomorrow's brownies in the making!