NASUWT Annual Conference 2023 Challenge: Blog Index
To find out all about our challenge, scroll down or use the links below to take you to the section you are looking for.
1. What is the NASUWT Annual Conference 2023 Challenge?
2. Why Rwanda?
3. What’s the ‘teaching’ twist?
6. How to Register to Take Part in the NASUWT Annual Conference 2023 Challenge
8. Donating Towards Our Fundraising Target
As we’ll be in Glasgow, we’re joining forces with World Walking, a volunteer-led Scottish charity based in Inverclyde just 20 miles west of the SEC Glasgow, to run our very own conference walking event with a ‘teaching’ twist.
Our goal - to walk/run 2,000 kilometres (just 3 million steps) around Scotland, ending up at our conference venue in Glasgow, using World Walking’s free platform to track our progress virtually online.
Spaces will be limited so please sign-up early to avoid disappointment.
Through our conference walking challenge we’ll be hoping to raise funds to help another Inverclyde-based charity, Aid for Education, which supports some of Rwanda's poorest children and their families who have no access to education, basic medical care or shelter.
Aid for Education was co-founded in 2010 by a teacher named Sarah Kakooza and her husband, Douglas. The main strand of their charity work is helping to ensure the children of Rwanda have access to education so they can achieve their potential and have hope for the future.
In 2017 Aid for Education began building Tubarere Nursery and Primary School in the Eastern Province of Rwanda. The school provides education to 268 pupils, from nursery children from age 3 up to primary five, and employs 11 teachers and 2 classroom assistants.
The charity hopes to build two additional classrooms to enable them to accommodate 60 more children at the school and expand their teaching to include primary 6 which is the final year of primary education in Rwanda. The cost of building the two classrooms is approximately £11,000.
Given Sarah's teaching background and their charity's focus on education, we were thinking how wonderful it would be if, through our annual conference, teachers from across the UK could help raise some money towards the cost of building these two classrooms to help change the lives of some of Rwanda's poorest children.
Aid for Education is a small, volunteer-led local charity based in Inverclyde, Scotland.
Founded in 2010, Aid for Education helps transform the lives of impoverished children and communities in Eastern Rwanda. With limited resources, this inspirational charity has:
Built Tubarere Nursery and Primary School since 2017 which now provides education to over 260 children;
Set up a farming cooperative to provide women with the opportunity to earn money to look after their families and take on leadership roles and make decisions over the profits generated from their collective agriculture efforts; and
Established a microfinance initiative, targeted to women who have no income, to provide a sustainable way of helping families earn some money and reduce poverty in the community.
Our goal is simply to raise some money to help Aid for Education build two new classrooms at their school in Rwanda. The more money we can raise the sooner the construction of the new classrooms can begin.
To take part in our challenge, you first need to create your World Walking account at worldwalking.org.
Once you have done that click on the My Groups on the top menu bar on your World Walking dashboard (the homepage for your account) and use the Search Group button to find the NASUWT walking group which has been created specifically for our conference. To find it enter NASUWT in the search box.
Once you have found the NASUWT group, click the Join this group button.
Finally, you need to join the group’s walk. Click on My Walks on the top menu bar. On the next screen you will see that the NASUWT group walk is available for you to join. Click on the walk and then click the Join Now button.
That’s you all ready to go. You can start adding your steps now.
With World Walking you can add the steps or distance you walk manually or you can automatically track your progress using your Fitbit, Apple Health and Google Fit. You can also use its integrated apps which use GPS. To find out more about getting started or syncing check out the relevant segments of World Walking’s Help Section.
As you track your activity, the NASUWT group will progress along the virtual route to Rwanda. The map will show where the group has reached along the route.
You can add distance in steps or miles or kilometres. World Walking handles all the conversions.
‘Steps’ is the default setting but you can change this if you will normally be entering your distance in miles or kilometres by following the guidance in this Help article: https://worldwalking.org/help/article/9403/set-your-default-unit-of-distance
With World Walking you add your distance to your ‘bank’ and then ‘spend’ the ‘banked’ distance on your walk.
Tip:
If you are adding distance manually, please take care that you are banking the correct distance and always double-check before you ‘spend’ any ‘banked’ distance to make sure it is the correct figure. If it isn’t and you spend the distance on your group walk you cannot correct it and the walk may be spoiled for everyone.
If, however, you spot your mistake before you ‘spend’ the distance on your walk, you can ‘un-do’ the steps from your bank by following the guidance in this Help article: https://worldwalking.org/help/article/1822/how-do-i-delete-distance-from-my-bank
To donate to Aid for Education, please click here. This link will take you to the fundraising page which has been set up for our challenge on World Walking.
Your donation will be sent directly to Aid for Education.
If you are a UK taxpayer you can Gift Aid your donation which means that for every pound you give, the charity can claim an extra 25 pence from HMRC, helping your donation go further.
The URL for our fundraising page is https://worldwalking.org/fundraising/ms80e Please share this link with your friends.