By Community Correspondent Jude Mitcham.

Southfields Community College student Merlain Makiadi, of Tooting Bec, gave up using public transport, getting around London by foot for a whole month, to raise over £1,000 to help fund his volunteering placement to India.

After completing his A Levels at Southfields, Merlain, 18, is taking a gap year to volunteer in North East India with Lattitude Global Volunteering in August this year. He will volunteer as an English teacher in a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery for refugee monks.

During his four month project, Merlain hopes to play a positive and active role in helping the community, by teaching pupils that will include monks aged 6 to 60 plus years old and lay children, some of which will be orphans.

Merlain, who has grown up in care, explains “People in developing countries, especially children, have to travel many miles and face challenging situations just for water to help their families live, or for a half decent education, but I have had free travel to school since I was 14, not to mention free education. I wanted to empathise with these people by compromising my own privileges”.

Lattitude has granted Merlain a bursary funded by the Jack Petchey Foundation to cover part of the required fee, but he needed to raise the remaining £2,000 for travel and other expenses. So Merlain asked local businesses and friends to sponsor him to give up his free travel pass for one month. Merlain gave up all modes of public or other transport, opting to walk everywhere, including the hour long walk to and from school every day.

“I’ve overcome a lot of difficulties in my life and achieved a lot, through my own clear determination and getting the support I needed. I have given back to my community, but there is more I can do” says Merlain. “I want to help children who might be like me, who need help, but don’t have that support, and getting sponsored for a month of walking everywhere has helped me on my way to go and do that”.

But a month of walking turned out to be more challenging than it sounded. “It was much harder than I had anticipated” Merlain continues. “I tend to rely heavily on public transport for college, training and other commitments and hadn’t realised how much time it would take out of one day. I was exhausted by the end of it but people were really supportive and I got lots of sponsors.”

Merlain has already given a lot back to his own community in Tooting and London, by founding the advocacy service CLICK (Children Living in Care Kouncil), helping to give children in care a voice, so that they can work in partnership with the senior managers who make decisions for them. “I believe that if decisions are going to be made to benefit children, then they should have an input” he added. Merlain also represents his peers in the Wandsworth Youth Forum and the London Youth Forum.

The purpose of Lattitude’s volunteer projects is to make a positive difference to communities around the world, and to the volunteers who gain invaluable life experience, often getting as much out of the projects as the communities they work with. Merlain chose the not-for-profit organisation to help arrange his gap year, because it met with all of his personal requirements. Project organisers have shown support of his plans to help children in India, in organising the trip and offering a part funded placement to help Merlain on his journey.

Merlain’s friends have also been supportive “My friends loved the idea of me giving up my travel pass -they liked the morals behind it. A few walked with me to school sometimes, but it was a bit early for some of them to do it for the whole month!”

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