Over the weekend of 12–13 June 2021, Oxford PharmaGenesis Chief Executive Officer Chris Winchester walked 65 km from Stratford-upon-Avon to central Birmingham, raising £450 for children’s tutoring charity Jacari.
To celebrate its sixty-fifth anniversary, the award-winning children’s charity Jacari has challenged its supporters to run, walk, cycle or swim 65 km in 65 days to help raise funds.
By connecting them with student volunteers, Jacari provides free one-to-one tutoring for disadvantaged migrant, asylum-seeking and refugee children who have English as an additional language in Oxford and Bristol.
“I volunteered with Jacari from 1990 to 1997, and spent a year as Chair during that time,” says Chris, “so the charity is particularly close to my heart”.
“My walk was exhausting, but rewarding. I was joined by two good friends, so we were able to keep each other motivated – and entertained! We managed to choose the hottest weekend of the year to date for our journey, but thankfully we found plenty of inspiration along the way.”
Chris’s walk ended in Birmingham with a well-deserved curry and a cold glass of lager (as well as plenty of water, of course!).
Jacari was founded by students at the University of Oxford in the 1950s as the Joint Action Commission Against Racial Intolerance, with one of its early initiatives being to support a student from South Africa to attend the University. The charity has since expanded its mission to tutoring children in Oxford and more recently Bristol, and over the years has helped to connect thousands of student volunteers with children in need of their support.
Oxford PharmaGenesis is proud to have further supported Jacari by donating laptops to use for its tutoring services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
To learn more about and support Jacari, please see the below links.
- If you would like to support Chris, you can make a donation here: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/christopher-winchester (The company will match funds raised up to £500.)
- You can find out more about donating laptops here: https://www.jacari.org/post/closing-the-digital-divide
- You can find a Q&A about Chris’s time as a Jacari Chair here: https://www.jacari.org/post/alumni-q-a-chris-winchester
