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Following the huge successes of both my Great Wall Challenge and my Trek to Machu Picchu Challenge I have now decided to embark on my toughest and most difficult challenge to date, however the rewards for completing the challenge will be immense for both research into Cancer in the UK and a small community in South Africa. The challenge that I have signed up for is Project for the Bobby Moore Fund, Cancer Research .

The challenge will be a strenuous 11 days in which time over 30 volunteers including myself will be tasked to repair and rebuild a primary school in a village called Sandberg, near Leipoldtsville in South Africa.

The school currently includes a computer room, small office, store room and a toilet block which are all in need of major repair, in addition to renovating these during our challenge we will be building a new library, football pitch, playground area and sports facilities for the children, but all of this depends on whether we have enough time and budget.

The primary school has 40 pupils who attend and are taught by 2 teachers, all of the children come from the immediate surrounding area where their parents are employed on either wheat or tea farms.

The average day will consist of waking up at around 5am at first light, and then after breakfast we will start work for over 8hrs a day with the weather expected to be a tropical climate (hot and sunny). During the challenge we will be staying in the village that we are working in, sleeping in tents without any proper facilities such as toilets and showers.

So that’s what I will be doing, now why I would choose to put myself through this 11 days of the most punishing experience of my lifetime? (Particularly with my fitness and level of DIY ability)

Well if you have ever watched the resilience and fear of someone who has been told that they have cancer – I won’t have to tell you the answer. Chemotherapy treatment takes much longer than 2 weeks and if a cancer patient can endure that then I can cope with all of this hard work, in the hope that my efforts will help to find a cure for this awful disease.

The money raised by this trek will be put towards research into finding treatments to cure cancer faster, in particularly bowel cancer, get treatment to patients more quickly and train more cancer scientists, doctors and nurses. All money raised will go to Cancer Research towards the Bobby Moore Fund which aims to raise money for cutting edge Bowel Cancer research and raise awareness of the high risk symptoms of Bowel Cancer.

Do you know that over 270,000 cases of cancer are diagnosed every year in the and one in three of us will develop cancer at some point in our lives. One in every eight new cases diagnosed are for Bowel Cancer, but if it is detected at an early stage then over 80% of cases can be successfully treated, however over half of all cases are currently diagnosed after their cancer has spread making treatment much more difficult. Bowel Cancer affects similar numbers of men and women. Cancer is still the biggest cause of death in the .

If you feel you can help me with my fundraising it would be greatly appreciated. As with my previous challenges ALL of the sponsorship raised goes directly to Cancer Research and not towards my travelling costs for the challenge which I will be paying myself.

 

If you are a taxpayer then if you could tick the Gift Aid Box on the website when donating and include your details this will enable Cancer Research to collect Gift Aid. This means, for each £20 donation, the government gives almost £6 more, at no extra cost to you.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.

Many thanks for taking the time to read my challenge and your valued support

Mark Page