The Believe & Achieve Trust

Our inspiration

The Believe and Achieve Trust was set up to continue the work of the most inspirational young man, Alex Williams.

When Alex was seven he contracted meningitis and ended up on life support, fighting for his life. He survived but his life changed forever. He ended up in a wheelchair with lots of after effects, but it didn’t stop Alex from doing what he set his mind to.

Alex spent three nights a week volunteering for a disabled dance group and was a sports ambassador for Tameside. He was also the Meningitis Trust’s first ever Young Ambassador and was passionate about making everyone aware of the symptoms of meningitis, spending every weekend giving out awareness cards.

Alex won lots of awards and regularly appeared in the media. He proudly carried the Olympic torch, the only person nominated more than once in fact he was nominated 24 times! Alex then spent a whole month going to schools in Tameside talking to the children about his motto, “believe and achieve”. He really believed that if you put your mind to it, you could achieve anything! The children in the schools loved it. 

In August 2012, Alex had a stroke as a direct result of the after-effects of meningitis and passed away. Our devastation made us realise the only way forward was to carry on his work, raising awareness of meningitis and support other young people through our support grants who are just like Alex whose lives have been affected by this disease or who were coping with challenges in their lives. 

The Believe and Achieve Trust was born in 2014 and, with Alex as our inspiration and your help, we continue to make a difference to people’s lives.