Guide Dogs, a founding member of the International Guide Dogs Federation, has been breeding and training dogs for blind people since 1931.

Just in the UK, 2 million people are living with sight loss and 180,000 of them rarely leave home alone.

Guide dogs enable blind people to travel independently and with confidence.

With just £52 a year, it is possible to breed a puppy and provide the necessary training for him/her to become an expert guide dog (sponsor a puppy program https://www.guidedogs.org.uk/sponsor-a-puppy-today ). 🦮 

🌍Citi aims to fundraise £350,000 for Guide Dogs in 2020, which would make a significant impact to the charity’s operations.

I am extremely happy to run the London Marathon whilst fundraising for Guide Dogs:

I have been entering the London Marathon ballot for the past 2 years, but with no luck. I wasn’t really sure about racing through a charity as the target is always high - although my dear colleagues of Commodity Investor Structuring and Trading have always generously donated to all charities I took as cause! 🥇 

Fundraising for Citi’s charity partner gives me confidence that the target will be met.🌈

On top of that, I think breeding dogs for the community is a great way of improving dogs lives through stable social bonds and a purpose of protection, both part of their natural instinct and extremely important to their health.♥️ Having bred pets myself, I love to see Citi fundraise for a charity that properly takes care of animals, simultaneously improving humans lives.🌻

While I found quite easy to enthusiastically put myself forward for running a marathon, sticking to training programs never attempted before and counting down the weeks to the day is rather challenging. I am grateful to Citi and Guide Dogs for having presented me with the opportunity to take part in one of the most iconic marathon races I could think of.

Additionally, I might get to run with a golden retriever’s picture printed on my t-shirt (this is still in progress)!

For those not familiar with marathon fundraising, this fundraise is exclusively for Guide Dogs; it won’t cover any race fee, I have paid for those separately :)

Edit:

The 2020 race could not take place on its usual course due to Covid-19, but I could still take part and finished in 4:00:54 running through storm Alex with support from friends and family. It was GREAT.🤩

💥💥💥This fundraise still holds for the 2021 race! Which has been postponed to October to maximise the chances of a full London Marathon event. 🌟