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In September 2012 eighteen lawyers from RPC, split into three teams of six, will take part in a fiercely competitive 21 mile swimming relay from Samphire Hoe in Dover to Cap Gris-Nez on the French coast.

Each team member has had to endure a 2 hour qualifying swim in Dover Harbour. The purpose was to confirm the swimmers could withstand cold water temperatures as low as 15 degrees, without a wetsuit. Some failed the first time round but completed it on another attempt, giving an indication of the toughness of the challenge.

During the race itself, each swimmer will do an hour stint in the water, before handing over to a teammate. The target is to swim the 21 miles across the Channel in an ambitious 13 hours, with everyone swimming at least two or three hour-long stints each. Buoyancy and heat retention aids are strictly forbidden, with only speedos, goggles and the local marine life for company. This is a real test of endurance on every level: we will have to endure swimming in the pitch black, cold water, sea sickness, jellyfish, sewage, tides and the 600 commercial ship movements and 80 to 100 ferry crossings between Dover and Calais that take place every day. It will be tough.

The six of us: Henry Gardener, Michael Williams, Tom Green, Jonathan Hutt, Larisa Smith and Samantha Perry comprise "Team Porter" and we will be raising money for Streets of Growth. Founded in 2001, Streets of Growth specialize in engaging youth and young adults away from educational and career drop-out, postcode territorialism, group/gang violence, criminality, drugs, and associated behaviours leading to harm, poverty, neighbourhood dysfunction and dependency.

They are based in one of the UK’s most socially deprived wards in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, a stone's throw from our offices, and over the past decade their innovative prevention and intervention approaches have helped transform the lives of some of the most disengaged disenfranchised young communities aged 12-22 years.

All your donations are much appreciated.

Henry, Jona, Larisa, Michael, Sam and Tom