Helm Walks for TLC
Organised by Transplant LinksHelm Specialist Recruitment are aiming to walk a combined 3000 KM in 31 days to raise funds for Transplant Links Community (TLC). Please sponsor the team to help them reach their target of $5,000SGD!
Story
The Helm Specialist Recruitment team is proud to support The Transplant Link Community (TLC) in our 1-month team walking/running challenge.
Our Helmies have committed to walking 3000 KM in 1 month from 24th of May to 23rd of June to raise funds for TLC with 11 of us in the team, that makes it just over 9 km per person per day average, which for some of us, is roughly 8.5 km more than the current activity level.
TLC is a charity very close to our hearts, as our Regional Manager, EMEA, Daniel Thompson, has first-hand experience with TLC when he was crossing the Atlantic in a yacht with his Dad.
Dan says:
TLC first came into our lives at a time when our own raised resources had come to an end. We lost my Dad when he sustained a head injury during an Atlantic yacht race from Las Palmas in the Canaries to St. Lucia in the Caribbean. The crew of 6 (including myself and my Dad) felt immediate hopelessness whilst we contacted MRCC Falmouth for help. Being 1,000 miles from the nearest point of land makes any form of rescue almost impossible. Costa Mediterranea (a Costa-owned cruise liner) diverted their course from Italy and met our 40ft yacht during the height of an Atlantic storm. My Dad and I spent 3 nights aboard the liner before being transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Barbados where he was, unsurprisingly, pronounced brain dead. The John D. Thompson Memorial Trust was created because my Dad would have wanted his organs to be donated. Sadly, Barbados didnt have such facilities, nor the expertise required to harvest organs. A Florida-based hospital offered to harvest the organs but that we, as a family, would have to pay for the doctors to fly to Barbados. Rather than spend the money flying surgeons to a country that had a much wider need than just ours, my mother, 3 sisters and I made the decision to create a memorial fund to raise the much-needed cash to help improve the situation in Barbados. With the help of the Barbadian government; the late Duke of Edinburgh; some very key individuals across the globe; and a wonderful group of colleagues, friends and likeminded individuals from the sailing community, the John D. Thompson Memorial Trust was able to raise enough money to improve the Queen Elizabeth Hospitals ICU; provide much needed equipment to conduct such intricate surgeries; and to fund the further education of Dr Margaret OShea in transplant surgeries.
It was at this stage that TLC came into our lives and chose to add Barbados to their growing list of countries that they can offer their expertise and tuition to. In TLC my Dads memory lives on.
We hope you will support us by donating via this JustGiving page the funds go straight to TLC to help them support the amazing work they do.
Transplant Links Community (TLC) is a UK based non-profit organisation whose vision is that patients all around the world can have access to life saving kidney transplantation. TLC assist transplant teams in low- and middle-income countries in performing kidney transplants, teaching skills in kidney transplantation to surgeons, doctors and nurses so that they are able to carry out these procedures unassisted and working with hospital administration, social workers, transplant coordinators and government officials for as long as it takes to ensure the transplant programme is sustainable.
With a kidney transplant, a patient can return to work, to school, contribute to society and live a near-normal life, free of dialysis. People live better, longer lives with a transplant. This surgery is commonplace in developed countries and is a highly successful procedure. Many hospitals around the world have the facilities to perform this life changing and life saving procedure, they just lack the specific skills. We have the skills, and it's our privilege to share them.
TLC Chief Operating Officer Aimee Jewitt-Harris says:
We're so grateful to Helm Recruitment for taking on such a brilliant challenge in aid of TLC. Your help will enable us to carry out our vital work, providing training and assistance to healthcare professionals who want a better life for their patients. We are proud to carry out our work in John Thompson's name and are humbled by the kindness and generosity of those who knew him and loved him dearly.