Oh what a night!

Last night I had the privilege and honour to attend a gala dinner at the famous Northumberland venue, which is located in Central London near to Trafalgar Square in aid of Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden’s foundation ‘Childhood’, an amazing organisation doing some incredible work in the field around sexually abused children, those living on the street, as well as providing support for mothers and babies across the world.

I was invited to attend this event by one of Paola’s good friends Carolina, who I met last November when both Carolina and Martin hosted a lovely dinner at their house for the Peer Facilitators attending the Global Youth Summit, since then we’ve kept in contact and Carolina has been providing ideas for fundraisers for Global Forum 40 – so I was extremely honoured when she invited me to attend this very special gala dinner which she organised.

The evening was attended by HRH Princess Madeline of Sweden a very gracious caring lady, along with Dominic Cooper who played Sky in the hit movie Mamma Mia, the famous Bill Nighy and performances from pop artists Olly Murs, September and Emilia de Poret and a dinner cooked by Chef Marcus Samuelsson who cooked Obama’s first ever State dinner – not forgetting our great friend comedian Francesca Martinez.

Having only heard about the ‘World Childhood Foundation’ (known as ‘Childhood’) briefly in conversations with both Carolina and from looking at their website, it was great to actually hear first hand about the projects ‘Childhood’ runs and supports, we heard about one particular project called‘The Kids Ark Foundation’ which is based in Thailand and was founded by an inspiring lady called Rita Holm Gustafsson.

The project itself is focused on alleviating young children from poverty and providing a place of shelter, which is both clean and safe, they also help to equip young people with the tools and education to allow them to re-enter society and find a job. Poverty is not only just their focus, they work with young abused children who are beaten by school teachers and their parents, as well as providing care and support for families and not forgetting those living with HIV.

As with all fundraising gala dinners there comes a charitable auction, which was kicked of by a silent auction by none other than Bill Nighy which raised just under £34,000 and was followed by a live auction, led by Sotheby’s UK Deputy Chairman Lord Dalmeny – again raising a fair big sum of money for this much deserved organisation to help them continue their fantastic work.

To round the evening off we were treated to some music from some very famous faces including Britain’s Olly Murs, who was a runner up in Simon Cowell’s hit series ‘The X Factor’ and is soon to be releasing his debut single, which will no doubt go straight to No. 1 in the UK Charts.

Myself and Francesca had the chance to chat to Olly as he left the stage, who told us he was pretty nervous although he looked quite the opposite as he was rocking around, he’s a really down to earth guy and we asked him the all important question of whether he’d perform for Global Forum 40′s Comedy Benefit Night on August 14th. Off course he said YES and we’ve already began making arrangements with his agent Andy, were all really excited to have Olly join us on what will be a splendid evening, hopefully if some of you are in London you’ll also be able to join us!

All in all it was a wonderful evening, both inspiring and motivating and I’m thankful to Carolina for inviting me this evening will be truly one to remember, I ask you all to check out the World Childhood Foundation and read about their work as I know you will be inspired!