I have been selected as one of 100 HSBC employees for the Arctic Challenge in Greenland that will take place in August 2018.

This is a self-funded expedition that requires each participant to trek 100km through the remote wilds of Greenland within the Arctic Circle for 5 days to raise vital funds for WaterAid, one of HSBC’s Water Programme partners.

The journey

Greenland is a vast country. It covers 98% of the land area of the Kingdom of Denmark, to which it politically belongs.

Geographically, it’s the world’s largest island. Yet only 15% of this area is not covered by ice and therefore available for permanent settlement, travel and trekking.

Roughly 100 km north of the polar circle in southwest Greenland lies the Arctic Circle Trail and a harsh climate is expected with temperatures in mid-summer can reach 25°C but mid-winter, they may drop to -50°C

The trail starts from Kangerlussuaq and ends to Sisimiut passing across glaciers in the Arctic elements — from the Ice Sheet all the way out to the coast. A land untouched by humans.

You can check the itinerary in the google maps link below:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@66.5214395,0.0258823,6z/data=!4m2!6m1!1s1xttFeRk_div3NBCOe54yUVL7TEU

It’s very difficult to give you a typical day as it will be heavily dependent on the weather and conditions, but a rough guide, I will wake up around 6:30am each morning for breakfast and depart on the trek by 9am.

Each day I will trek for between 6-8 hours aiming to finish each day by 6pm carrying my own equipment weighing approximately 20kgs.

During the trek I will eat basic meals, I will have not access to typical facilities and I will stay in group tents of 3 - 4 people which we will break down and carry each day between tentmates (around 2kg per person).

Simply this expedition is not for the faint hearted.

The reason

Currently 663million people (10% of the world's population) live without safe water and over 800 children die every single day from diseases caused by dirty water and poor sanitation.

WaterAid aims to transform the lives of the poorest and most marginalised people by improving access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene, and hopes to give everyone safe access to water by 2030, so please dig dip and sponsor this worthy cause!

Our trek will raise money to support projects in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Ghana and Nigeria.  The group's aim is to provide clean water for 26,000 people in these countries through this fundraising venture.

Throughout my life I have had constant access to clean water and sanitation facilities. This is just a small part of my effort to give back to the community.

Aside from volunteering and fundraising I also hike to be humbled, to push myself and to be thankful. 

When you accomplish something that takes a lot of physical strength and mental determination, to keep going and to not give up, it gives you good practice for being able to handle any sort of unexpected things that life might throw your way.

Without challenge, without discomfort, without overcoming obstacles that you didn’t foresee, I think that you are in a much greater risk of living a fairly shallow life.

I feel that what Henry David Thoreau declares early in the pages of Walden fits perfectly to this expedition. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

I am targeting raising EUR1,000 in support of WaterAid. Any contribution would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your consideration and support!