We have set up this Just Giving page for the benefit of Warwick in Africa www.warwick.ac.uk/warwickinafrica, the first charity that Run Africa has teamed up with to support through an exciting and somewhat daunting challenge!

Run Africa, a 10,500km run from Cairo to Cape Town is a project dreamed up by Joe Labuschagne with the support of Andrea, Charlotte and Nicholas Godfrey among others. Our aim is to raise money to support projects to improve life and create opportunities for people in Africa, and particularly children, and thereby reduce poverty.  As Math and English skills are great liberators from poverty, Warwick in Africa, which has already benefitted over 210,000 of the poorest young Africans with transformed teaching is a natural choice. Especially as the charity’s core costs are funded by the University so every penny goes on delivery. 

In order to really make a difference Joe is committed and determined to run from Cairo to Cape Town! 

Our Vision of the run

• 10,500km through 9 countries over 547 days.  We will use local knowledge to help define the route to make as safe as possible.  This will be done over the next three months
• 20 to 30km per day with some breaks to visit projects and border crossings
• The route will be structured so that Joe can visit ongoing projects/orphanages/schools on the way to highlight the phenomenal work that many of these organisations do
• Joe will be supported on the run by a medic, driver (Innes) and someone with local knowledge for each country that they go through.  This will be important particularly if we achieve the objective of getting people to join Joe
• The vehicle ideally will be an RV that has multiple useful facets including a bed, water filter systems refrigeration and storage for food and medical supplies.
• Additional accommodation could be provided through a towed extension
• We are hoping that for the majority of the journey that the medic(s) will be volunteers
• We will need support in funding the project through a vehicle, medic (in part?), together with accommodation/living/technology/kit/immigration etc.  We are currently pulling together high level costings for the project
• Other thoughts:
• We would like to create the opportunity for people to join Joe for a week/a country/the whole venture (if they are mad enough!).  This could be running or cycling. This will also be another opportunity to raise money and give the people joining a tremendous experience
• Africa produces some of the greatest long distance runners in the world.   It would be great to get some of the young runners to join for different stages
• The involvement of schools here in the UK through their involvement in projects in Africa
• The involvement of International Schools in Africa through contact with Association of International Schools in Africa (AISA)

Joe is aiming to start his run July 2016. 

We are excited to join up with Warwick in Africa as the first charity that we will support.  Over the next few months we are looking to extend our support to other charities which complement our aims and those of Warwick in Africa and which reach children along the route and across the whole of Africa. 

We will provide regular updates as the project develops and you can follow us on Facebook www.facebook.com/RunAfrica

Please support Joe in this huge endeavour and donate to our Just Giving page!