Welcome to my fundraising page.

I am proud to be running the Stockholm Marathon this year for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity. 

I would be absolutely delighted if you could make a donation to support this fantastic cause.

For those of you who don't know, Great Ormond Street Hospital is one of the world's leading centres for paediatric care and research. Founded in 1852, it has always relied on donations from the public to care for sick children.

The Hospital receives funding for basic care from the UK government. The Charity provides additional funds to the Hospital in order to do four things:

(i) carry out pioneering research into new treatments and cures for childhood illnesses - the Hospital is the largest paediatric research centre in the world outside of the US. The latest initiatives are the creation of Europe's first Birth Defect Research Centre; and the world's first Centre for Palliative Care, which focuses on relieving the suffering of children with life-threatening illnesses.

(ii) buy specialist medical equipment - some new treatments undertaken by the Hospital needs specialist equipment which can only be privately funded. These include genetic analysers, which help clinicians diagnose inherited genetic disorders; and retinal imaging equipment, which help detect early signs of optical nerve conditions.

(iii) provide accomodation for families who have travelled to be with their children - the Hospital is a tertiary referral centre, which means children are often referred by other hospital that do not have the ability to treat complex childhood illnesses. This means families often have to travel to London to be with their children during treatment. The Charity provides funds to accommodate families from all over the UK and overseas.

(iv) redevelop the site - the Hospital is undergoing a major four phase programme to rebuild two thirds of the site over a 20 year period. The first phase was completed in 2006, and the Hospital is now working on the second. This will see the building of new clinical inpatient facilities and enable the treatment of up to 20 per cent more children.

If you would like to see more information about the Charity, I recommend reading one of the Impact Reports (near the bottom of the page) at www.gosh.org/gen/about-us/annual-reports/.

The Charity aims to raise around £50m each year, which is obviously a huge undertaking. I really hope you can dig deep to support it. 

Many, many thanks.

Omar