Lucy's 30th Birthday Present: for Jacari

On October 12th I'll have been on this globe for 30 years. And although I love presents, if you've got no idea what to get me, why not donate to the awesome tiny local charity I'm a trustee of? I'd love that!

I've been involved with Jacari (jacari.org/) since I was a student (I've just realised that means 'for 10 years' - woah!) and they do an awesome job pairing students from Oxford Uni and Brookes with kids in the local area who struggle with English for free, fun, home tuition.

I support Jacari because:

• It levels the playing field for hundreds of local kids with English as an Additional Language
• It helps integrate the student community into the city they live in, and provides great experience for them
• It delivers a huge amount (~250 tuition hours on a typical week) with just the efforts of one whole coordinating paid staff member.
• It's constantly doing new things - starting Mum's groups for English learning, improving tutor's training in TEFL training techniques, becoming a registered charity, and running a social enterprise to help provide sustainable support (a local football league).

We're still reliant on donations though, and so anything you can give will help ensure that the charity (which began in the 1950s as an anti-racism group - the Joint Action Committee Against Racial Intolerance) keeps supporting hundreds of kids (and often their siblings too!) each year.