Why am I doing this??

....until the 2nd week of September I did not have a pair of trainers and I had not been for a run since I lived in Ladybarn Lane in Manchester (over 20yrs ago!)...... a couple of common minor ailments make running a bit tricky at times......reaching a finish line 13 miles away is going to be hard.....

I will be running (and likely walking) because I want to raise money for the work of African Hospital Libraries (AHL) - a small charity which supports library and information services for healthcare workers and students in Sierra Leone.

Your sponsorship money will go towards employing six totally amazing people in Sierra Leone (Fatmata, Mariatu, Sheik, Joel, Alex and Komba), who run library services for healthcare workers (and healthcare students) in three government-funded provincial referral hospitals (Bo, Makeni and Kenema), and support several "link-up libraries" in other government-funded hospitals and training facilities. They are a joyful and committed team, who have become increasingly skilled over the years (massive well done to them!!), and I am extremely blessed to support them as a Trustee of AHL (which I have been doing since the first library opened in 2013).

Hospital libraries provide essential life-saving reference information for healthcare workers and students, resources to support continuing professional development and quality improvement activities, and space for discussions and group work. (Did you know there is almost certainly a medical/nursing library in your local hospital, if you live in the UK? I have to say a big thanks to the staff of the Bodleian Health Care Libraries here in Oxford, for their longstanding support of AHL - much love to you all - thanks also to Book Aid International, the British Medical Association Information Fund, Anatomy Stuff and all our other wonderful incredible supporters throughout the past few years!)

Sponsoring me will help AHL enormously. I'm sure it will also give me some much-needed running wings..... :) If you see me on the day, please shout very loudly and throw me some sweets!

Plenti tenki (thanks very much!)

Claire