Julie and Paul are taking on an incredible 500km cycling challenge in November 2025 to raise funds for Lendwithcare. The journey will entail off road routes through rural villages from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We will be cycling for eight days with distances upto 90km per day, in 30 degrees heat and around 75% humidity.

CARE International is one of the world’s leading aid agencies working in over 80 countries around the globe. They seek a world of hope, tolerance and social justice, with women and girls at the centre, where poverty has been overcome, and people live with equal opportunities in security and dignity.

CARE’s projects are designed to help some of the world’s poorest people, one of their projects is called Lendwithcare which we are fundraising for on this challenge.

* More than 2 billion people in the world lack access to basic financial services

* For small business owners, this means they don’t have access to affordable loans to invest in their businesses and grow their income

* Poor people are excluded from these services because big banks see them as too much of a risk

* The problem is that poor people need these services more than others and often have no choice but to seek extortionate loans from loan sharks

* Lendwithcare lends small amounts of money to small business owners in poor countries to help them grow or expand a business

* They call the small business owners supported through Lendwithcare entrepreneurs because in their view, they work just as hard as any other successful entrepreneur

* Rather than receiving a one-off donation, the entrepreneurs pay the loan back, using income from their growing business

We have been supporting Lendwithcare since 2016 choosing the individuals we wished to support and seeing them using the money to grow their business such as buying equipment, seeds etc. and then successfully paying back their loans.

Julie has been a volunteer ambassador for Lendwithcare since 2018 in which time she has raised awareness by giving presentations to various groups including Womens Institute and schools.

The reason for us undertaking this challenge is to raise significant funds for Lendwithcare and a highlight for us will be to meet entrepreneurs who have received Lendwithcare loans and understand the challenges they have overcome and the benefits of receiving the loans and support.

This will also be a personal challenge for us both and will require plenty of training and time in the saddle over the months leading up to the ride. We will share our progress with training and fundraising as we go.

To be completely transparent, we are funding the flights, accomodation, food etc. involved in the trip and all of the fundraising is going to Lendwithcare.

We thank you for your support and generosity, every little helps.

Best wishes

Julie & Paul