Since Stuff Your Rucksack re-launched last year, we have had some incredible feedback from charities and travellers alike, who have received and given donations that have changed lives for the better. We like to share these stories with you as much as possible, with our success stories page on the website (keep an eye out over the coming weeks for the latest stories!), and we will also be adding some messages from SYR travellers and charities to the new blog. Messages like this, from travelling photographer Robyn Gwilt:
‘In Sept 2011 before our first Botswana/Namibia/Zimbabwe trip, my husband
Anthony found Stuff Your Rucksack online. I mentioned it to our friends who were joining us on our trip. Everyone bought into the idea and contributed something for the trip, as did other friends and family members.
We filled 3 boxes with baby and children’s clothes, 40 plastic lunch boxes and
40 plastic juice bottles, blackboards, whiteboards and crayons, and about 10 soccer balls courtesy of Equatorial Guinea Liquid Natural Gas, where my husband works.
We visited Devava Kindergarten in Namibia: a tiny school built under a tin roof in the blazing African sun, where between 30 and 50 young children gather daily for care, while their parents work at the nearby lodges.
We departed with a couple of soccer balls left over, and handed them out along the way to various other schools in the area – places where we found children playing with ‘makeshift’ balls. Soccer truly crosses all boundaries, and it was wonderful to see the look on their faces when we gave them our surprise!
I offer this simple message: before you travel, there is always someone, somewhere who will appreciate something that you no longer have a need for.
You don’t even need to travel far – there could be something right on your doorstep. Wherever it is, if you recognise a worthy cause, add it to
Stuff Your Rucksack!’
Communication is at the heart of the Stuff Your Rucksack concept. Through the power of word-of-mouth we have endeavoured to bring together a global community of amazing projects and generous travellers who, bit by bit, want to make the world a better place.
Robyn also took some fantastic pictures of their visit. Here are just a selection:
Stuff Your Rucksack 