Thanks for taking the time to come on my page. I'm running the Paris marathon in April, my first in 10 years (I blame my three young kids for this). I'm hoping to do a personal best and run it within 3 hours and 15 minutes and will be running three half marathons in the run up to it. 

Beyond a desire to reconnect with the fitness of my late twenties, I'm taking on this challenge because I want to raise money for an organisation that tackles what I see as the biggest challenge of the 21st century: climate change. A few months ago, the world's top climate scientists told us that mankind wasn't doing anywhere near enough to prevent the environmental, social and economic impacts that climate change is increasingly causing around the world. But they also told us that if we act now, we can address this unprecedented challenge and build a brighter, cleaner future.

I've therefore chosen to run for SolarAid, a charity that provides access to clean solar lights in remote regions of Malawi, Uganda and Zambia, thereby tackling both climate change and poverty. There are 589 million people without access to electricity in Africa. This has huge impacts on families' working lives and children's ability to study. Those families that do find other ways of lighting their homes tend to rely on hazardous, expensive and environmentally damaging alternatives such as kerosene lamps.

As you'll see from this short clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmwQEIPV2Y8&t=2s), SolarAid provides access to solar lights through their social enterprise 'SunnyMoney'. Staff travel long-distances to rural areas which conventional businesses can't reach. Once there, they engage communities about the benefits of solar lights, build trust and grow demand for solar lights. This then creates a long-term market for solar lights that can benefit other local businesses. 

It costs SolarAid £4 for every solar light it sells. I'm aiming to raise £2,000 for SolarAid, which would be enough to sell 500 solar lights, reach 2,175 people, save families just under £80,000 and cut carbon emissions by 530 tonnes.

Any donation you can make would be hugely appreciated. And for those of you who would like to find out a bit more about climate change and the many simple things we can do in our daily lives to help address it, this BBC article is worth a read: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46384067    

Thanks for your time and support!

Nick

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