This is a 6(ish) mile cross country run followed by a 20 obstacle assault course. Sounds relatively simple but browsing the website reveals it may not be that simple!
Some links for browsing:
Tough Guy overview: http://www.toughguy.co.uk/?q=node/170
The course: http://www.toughguy.co.uk/?q=node/168
Needless to say we are doing this for charity. Being Traffic and Transportation Engineers we wanted to do it for a charity which we both had a connection to. Transaid may not be one of the more well known charities but they do a lot of good work in Africa.
We'll leave them to explain what they do:
About Transaid
Transaid is an international development charity that seeks to reduce poverty and improve quality of life through providing better access to essential services such as healthcare, education and economic opportunities in Africa and across the developing world. By working with the European transport and logistics industry, Transaid builds local skills and knowledge within the transport sector to make transport cheaper, safer, cleaner and more effective.Transaid was founded by Save the Children and the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT), under the patronage of HRH The Princess Royal.
Why we exist
Transport is essential for life and for the achievement of the Millenium Development goals which aim to halve world poverty by 2015. However, the reality for many of the poorest people in Africa and across the developing world is that access to transport is poor, inadequate, unavailable or non-existent.
Lack of transport denies people access to their basic needs such as healthcare, education and can also impact on their ability to work, all of which are a human right. The consequences of unsafe, inefficient transport lead to lives lost. Traditionally international aid spent on transport goes towards improving infrastructure but little money is allocated for management and skills training to enable transport to work effectively. Many development projects fail due to lack of attention to transport and the failure to prioritise budgets accordingly.
Transaid recognises that transport knowledge is absolutely essential to the smooth running of any project involving movement of goods or people and we seek to advocate and tackle this need from the grassroots to the policy level.
Our Expertise
Transaid currently has three main areas of expertise:
1.Efficient vehicle management We work with departments of health, governments and other organisations to improve the management and maintenance of their vehicle fleets. We do this by applying the Transaid Transport Management System to reduce costs, improve service delivery and increase operational efficiency.
2. Appropriate technologies to access essential services We provide access to appropriate, alternative forms of transport for communities where conventional forms of transport are not available e.g. bicycle and motorcycle ambulances. These life-saving technologies enable men, women and children in rural communities to reach health services when they are most in need.
3. Driver competence and safety standards We promote professional driver training standards and develop driver training programmes to improve road safety and the efficient use of vehicles.
Our Current Projects
We work in West, East and Southern Africa and have also conducted projects in parts of Asia.
Our most recent project (which benefits greatly from donations) is our Professional Driver Training project in Zambia. In Zambia there is a huge shortage of quality trained HGV drivers. As a result road accidents occur daily, often with devastating consequences for poor families when the income of a breadwinner is lost due to death or injury, road related deaths are the 3rd highest cause of premature death in Africa after HIV/Aids and Malaria. The essence of this project is to ultimately reduce the number of crashes and deaths on the road through training these drivers to be responsible and efficient, and capable of maintaining their vehicles effectively and safely.
Our project in Northern Nigeria is working to reduce child and maternal mortality by improving access to healthcare for women and children. This project includes the development of an emergency transport system to get pregnant women from remote, rural areas to hospital in time so that they receive professional care when giving birth. Women in Sub-Saharan Africa continue to face a 1 in 13 chance of dying from pregnancy and childbirth, when the risk for women in the industrialized world is only 1 in 4,085. The project also aims to increase access to vaccinations against preventable diseases for children who would otherwise go without.Thank you for taking the time to read this and we hope you will be able to sponsor us for what promises to be a very tough event.
