13-year-old creates new 'Hope Bowl' to raise money for children
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13-year-old Gabriel is a bit of a whizz when it comes to all things woodwork.
The teen went viral last year after raising more than 拢250,000 for the charity Save the Children to help children affected by the war in Ukraine.
He held a raffle for his handmade wooden bowl, called the 'Bowl for Ukraine', which was etched with a blue-and-yellow ring in the colours of the country's flag.
This year, the talented teen has decided to create another wooden bowl to try and raise even more money to help children.
Gabriel's dad Richard posted about his son's work on social media which gained him lots of supporters.
Gabriel was inspired to make his new work, named 'The Hope Bowl', after seeing how the money from his first fundraiser has been used to help children at a school in Poland's capital Warsaw which he recently visited.
The school supports more than 450 children from Ukraine between the ages of six and 17. They study the Ukrainian curriculum in their native language, and the school also provides Polish language lessons.
"I had an absolutely amazing time. All the children were so polite and they had amazing English," Gabriel said about his visit.
"We played some traditional Ukrainian board games - I got horribly beaten in a game of ping pong - and I painted wooden eggs with the children, which is very traditional for Ukrainians.
"It was really interesting to learn about their culture and experience that first-hand," he said.
One part of the trip that really stood out to Gabriel was just how much the children he met were like him and his friends.
"It just stuck with me so much that there were so many children that, despite what they have been through, were so similar to me - there was one that did Taekwondo and another that played the drums," Gabriel explained.
He also received a special gift while he was in Poland.
"I think the highlight of the trip was being given a beautiful blue-and-yellow painting by a young girl called Karina (whose name has been changed for safeguarding reasons), that represents Ukrainian fields and sky.
"It now hangs on my wall above my desk."
This time around, Gabriel is raising money for Save the Children's Emergency Fund to support children living further afield, in places including East Africa.
"I feel as though children can sometimes be underappreciated and they need our support because they can't work to earn money to help themselves," he said.
"And the world has so many issues with it so I think if I can do my part to straighten some of them out then I want to try."
Gabriel's latest creation includes three different types of wood - ash, sapele and zebrano. This represents three of the main areas of Save the Children's work around the world - education, food and medicine.
"I wanted to use different types of wood to make the bowl stripy or segmented to represent the different countries Save the Children work in and to show how they help different people around the world," Gabriel said.
So far, he's raised more than 拢6,000 and added that seeing people support his project has been "amazing".
"I'm delighted by how well it's going and everyone is so nice," he said.
"I was not sure if I would get a similar response or not and the support really keeps me going and inspires me."
A draw where people can enter to win the bowl closes on 14 April.
"I wanted to make a bowl to support Save the Children, but also give people something to look forward to and bring back some of that magical energy that happened in 2022," Gabriel added.
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