The Marathon des Sables is ranked by the Discovery Channel as:

'The Toughest Footrace on Earth'

Known simply as the MDS, the race is a grueling 250 Kilometre multi-stage adventure through a formidable landscape in one of the world’s most inhospitable climates - the Sahara desert.

The rules require you to be self-sufficient, to carry with you on your back everything except water that you need to survive.

We are doing this to raise funds to build an orphanage on the outskirts of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. This is in response to the desperate plight of Tanzanian children who have been abandoned by parents – either by reason of disease and death, divorce or other incapacity to maintain the family unit

A group of Tanzanian private citizens decided to register a children’s home and to call it, “Larchfield”, to serve as a happy, safe and secure environment for Tanzanian children who have no home. In 2011 Larchfield was legally set up as an NGO [#00NG0/00005420] and acquired land at Mkuranga, (some 40 miles south of Dar-es-Salaam) where there are many disadvantaged children - the lucky ones are fostered with other families. With government and private sector encouragement the Larchfield Project began. 

The objective is to build and operate a purpose built children’s home, initially for 50 children, but phased to accommodate eventually up to 300.