Educating Essex.

Training has been going on well, despite the cold and gloomy weather. I'm really grateful to my coach, Ken Day, for turning out to help me 6 days a week. He is so dedicated and I appreciate him. In these increasingly cold evenings I have been finding that my toes and fingertips have been freezing during training. However, I have discovered some excellent inner gloves made by Karrimor so I have solved the fingertip problem. Working on the toe problem.

Yesterday I went to Harlow Leisurezone to do my strength and conditioning work and it was great to work with John Campbell again. John is one of those instructors who pushes you to your limits, which is exactly what I need. Put it this way, after a session with John you know you have worked!

I have been watching 'Educating Essex' on Channel 4 with great interest because Passmores School is literally just around the corner from my house. A few years ago I was invited to the school to present awards to the children and I found everyone involved really friendly. There was a real family atmosphere to the school that I liked and the Head, Mr Goddard, went out of his way to support me. As a trained teacher myself, albeit one who has only ever taught in Kenya, I found the behaviour of the staff and students very interesting to observe. In Kenya there was nothing like detentions and counselling when a student makes a mistake, it was just a matter of how many strokes of the cane were dished out! In Kenya everyone believes in; 'Spare the rod, spoil the child'. If you were thrashed at school you would be thrashed again at home by your parents for disrespecting the teacher. How different things are here. I really admired the way Mr Drew dealt with the students. To me he is an excellent teacher who really cares about the students he teaches and there didn't seem to be any problem he couldn't deal with. He was just so calm and never seemed to lose his temper even when provoked. Mr Goddard, the Head, was equally impressive in the way he went about his work and who could imagine seeing such a powerful man crying on national television. I really admired that because he showed a very positive side of his character in that incident and he should be seen as a role model by other professional people. The students who featured in the series, in spite of all their problems, will look back at themselves and it will make them better people.

Disability Empowerment Association Launched.

It's been months in the planning but yesterday we finally launched our new charity, Disabled Empowerment Association, at Passmores School in Harlow. In attendance were; Mrs Kezia Obama(stepmum to USA President Obama), Harlow MP Bill Rammell, the Lord Lieutenant of Essex, Lord Petre, Edna Stevens,chair of Harlow Council, Robert Halfon, Conservative candidate, and local Councillor, Tony Hall. There were about two hundred people present who thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment provided by; Footwork Dance School(Indian dance),Efua Academy(African dance and drums), Makin' Steps Performing Arts(Hip hop dance), and Dance 21, for me the stars of the evening. They were fantastic, especially when they danced to songs from 'Grease'. Music was provided by Adam Amor, superb saxophonist and very good friend, Noah Keya, and DJ Lopo T. I've been very stressed out over the past few weeks trying to set the whole event up but the end result made it all worthwhile. Thanks to everyone involved, especially our Chairman, Solomon Mugondi who was MC.

Now the hard work really starts as we try to get the funding to run classes in Art, Dance, Music, IT, Creative Writing and Sport. I will have to balance my sporting activities with work for the charity but I will do it because I relish a challenge. Bring it on! Can we make it a successful organisation, YES WE CAN!!