In September, we plan on swimming the length
of all 13 accessible lakes in the Lake District in a week in support of
EthiopiAid.

With a total distance of 67km, this
challenge will entail an average of around 10km of open water swimming per day,
including the longest lake, Windermere, at 17 km. James had no prior experience
of open water swimming until three weeks ago. We are now training three times a
week in the River Thames in Abingdon and the River Wear in Durham, and have had several trial swims of some of the lakes over the past few weeks.

We have chosen to raise money for EthiopiAid,
a charity dealing with the threat to food security from the recent plagues of locusts
across East Africa. EthiopiAid is a relatively small charity working with local
communities in rural Ethiopia. The charity uses a sustainable, grass-roots approach
across a number of areas including education, the empowerment of women and alleviation
of poverty. It also supports isolated families through the ongoing locust crisis.
More information can be found on the EthiopiAid website at https://www.ethiopiaid.org.uk/

This combination of sustainable
development and humanitarian assistance on a local level is where we feel our fundraising
can have the most impact. With the size of this challenge and just over two
months to raise money, we have set a target of £5,000.

Your support is greatly appreciated

James and Cal MacLennan