As many of you may know I am taking part in the Plymouth to Dakar rally. A colleague and I will be setting off tonight, to drive to Portsmouth to catch a ferry bound for France. The plan is that we will then drive through France, Spain, take a ferry over to northern Morocco and then on through Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal and finally arrive in The Gambia in about three weeks time.

If we make it, the car will be auctioned off and the money donated to two local charities.

The Gambia is a small, poor country that struggles with having a population the size (roughly) of Birmingham and a land area that is more the size of Scotland. More than 75% of the population are subsistence farmers and therefore desperately needs all the support it can get.

The first charity supported by the rally is the Association of Small-Scale Enterprises in Tourism (ASSET). The second is the Gambian National Olympic Committee (GNOC).

ASSET operates in the tourism industry and was set up to help thousands of Gambians to scoop up more of the crumbs from the tourism table and to 'give a voice to the voiceless'. So it lobbies government to do more for the juice pressers, the fruit sellers, the tourist taxi drivers, the official tourist guides and people with many similar jobs, all of whom struggle to gain access to the tourists who are managed by the tour operators and the bigger ground operating companies.

By contrast the GNOC is about improving the quality of life of all ordinary Gambians by providing sporting facilities. In the Gambia, there is huge interest and participation in sport. The Gambia has a huge numbers of 'football pitches' - patches of bare sand - at least one in every village. Very few people can afford the kit that gets bought for kids from the age of two or three in the UK. Football boots, footballs are in very short supply and to see a goal with a net is almost unknown. The GNOC struggles hard in these circumstances to offer a variety of sporting activities and to build stadia around the country. The National Stadium, where our car will be auctioned, is apparently an impressive building but it is the only one of its kind in the country. The GNOC is building more facilities as and where it can but has very limited funds.

ASSET and GNOC ensure other Gambian charities also hear about the rally and are able to apply for some of the proceeds. In addition, they will also do what they can to monitor the way the money is spent in order to make sure it goes where it was meant to.

Since the rally began in 2003, hundreds of thousands of pounds have been raised, which has made a huge difference in a country as small and poor as The Gambia. We hope will be achieved again this year!

So although we will be having fun on the trip, we will be donating our car to these charities. If you would also like to follow our lead, it would be great if you could donate something to either UNICEF or Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without borders) both who do fantastic work in Africa, making a real difference to thousands of lives.

I have set-up specific fundraising web pages so you can donate; simple go to either of pages below and get your credit/debit card out!

http://www.justgiving.com/msf-plymouth-to-dakar

http://www.supportunicef.org.uk/Plymouth_to_Dakar

I hope to keep you all up-to-date with our progress on the Chameleon blog, which can be found at: http://www.chameleonnet.co.uk/blog/default.aspx

Or if you want to find our more about the rally and see up-to-date field reports from us and the rest of the teams, you can to the official Plymouth Dakar challenge site at: http://www.plymouth-dakar.co.uk