I am a Trustee of the UK-based Charity Maternity Worldwide, whose mission is ‘Saving lives in Childbirth’ in low income countries, particularly in Africa. During its first 20 years, the Charity has succeeded in sustainably reducing the maternal death rate in the regions in which it works in Malawi, Uganda and Ethiopia and has set up an infrastructure network of local self-help in rural areas. I saw this myself when I visited Maternity Worldwide’s projects in 2017. My overriding impression was how much the Charity had achieved, but also that the people were the poorest and yet the happiest I had ever met. We want to continue to use the infrastructure we have established, not only to support our core work directly, but also to protect the rural communities we serve during
the pandemic.

Unfortunately, like many other charities, we have suffered a major drop in income during the last year as we have not been able to hold the many fund-raising events which are our main source of income. Although we can just about maintain our staff and infrastructure in Malawi, Uganda and Ethiopia, we need one-off funding to continue
to prevent COVID-19 having a potentially devastating effect, by the following relatively simple measures:

• Providing soap and sanitation
  products to households in villages in Uganda and Malawi
• Providing safe health promotion on
  hygiene, hand washing and social distancing from specially trained staff
• Providing sanitation equipment for
  our clinics and health promotion key messages for health staff

I am trying to raise £4,000 in sponsorship for urgent support of our work during the pandemic. My challenge is to walk, during 2020, the equivalent of the distance from my house in Yorkshire to Africa (2,550 km). As of 20^th October, I had already walked 1,915 km, but I still have another 635 km to go in the next two months. 

I would be very grateful if you would sponsor me to complete the walk during 2020. All funds I raise will go directly into into supporting our work in rural Africa in the midst of the pandemic.

Thank you

Stan