A charitable trust set up by the family of Guy Joseph (OE 1997-2002) has raised £106,000 this year through a wide range of fund-raising events. Guy was killed in a paragliding accident in the Pyrenees in October 2011, aged 25.
The trust was established to support two causes that Guy was particularly passionate about, namely disadvantaged children and conservation. Members of his family and friends will be travelling to Nepal in the spring to start building work on an Early Childhood Development Centre in his memory.
Guy graduated from Newcastle University with a first-class degree in Marine Biology. From autumn 2009 until the summer of 2011, he lived and taught scuba diving in Labuan Bajo, on the Indonesian island of Flores. Whilst there, he helped set up MantaWatch, an organisation dedicated to protecting the endangered manta ray through tracking, research, management and conservation.
Guy’s Trust honours Guy’s commitment to MantaWatch by funding two annual internships for deserving and academically gifted students to spend a month working with the organisation in Flores. The recipients of the first two Guy Joseph MantaWatch awards, announced earlier in 2012, were Anindita Rustandi and Muhammad Ichsan, described on the Guy’s Trust website as “enthusiastic, motivated and passionate young marine scientists”. Both are students at the Faculty of Fishery and Marine Science at Padjadjaran University, Indonesia. The cost of the two internships for 2012 was £1,765.
Guy lived in Pokhara in Nepal for several months during the winter of 2010-11. He loved the country and its people, especially the children, and had planned to return there. The trust, in partnership with the international Non-Governmental Organisation, ActionAid, is building two Guy Joseph Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDCs), one in Dhikurpokhari and one in Dansingh.
Guy’s parents, sisters and 26 friends are due to fly out to Nepal in March to spend a week starting to build the Early Childhood Development Centre.
“These ECDCs will promote the right to pre-school education for children in this impoverished region of Nepal and help hundreds of children get the start in life they deserve,” said Guy’s mother, Vikki. “The ECDCs will not only provide learning and recreational materials but will also run a wider programme including teacher training, parental education on nutrition, and health and hygiene.”
The School adopted the trust as one of its charities for 2012-13. “We were greatly saddened to hear of Guy’s death,” said Headmaster Neil Enright. “The School supports a number of charities each year and we felt that Guy’s adventurous spirit and commitment to the causes he espoused were very much in keeping with the ethos of the School.”
- The Guy’s Trust website may be reached at www.guystrust.org