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The challenge is to raise £1000 by walking approximately 20 miles a day miles in hot, dusty and sometimes rainy Sri Lanka.

All expenses for this trip are being met by me with support from my first sponsor Iceberg Consulting.

All moneys donated here go direct to Laureus whose focus is to help young people overcome the limitations imposed by challenging social issues including poverty, homelessness, war, violence, drug abuse, discrimination and AIDS.

To do this Laureus supports and assists a worldwide programme of sports related community projects that have been working to educate children, protect the vulnerable from illness and even bring people from divided communities together in friendship for over ten years

*Laureus make the following commitments

*Laureus won't use any of your donations to pay for fundraising drives.

*Laureus will use it to directly help improve the lives of children around the world through the power of sport.

100% of your donation goes straight to one of the projects supported by the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation. These projects use sport as a tool to fight some of the world’s most devastating problems such as HIV/AIDS, child poverty and youth crime.

This way you can be sure that anything you donate to Laureus really will go directly toward making a difference to the lives of children and young people.

Why I am doing this

I was living in Asia when the tsunami happened and although I was lucky enough to be away from the affected areas I saw and heard first-hand the impact it had and continues to have years later. Many of the coastal communities who were impacted are fragile and depended on the sea and tourism for a living didn’t have the safety blankets of work and family that I have been lucky enough to enjoy.

In particular there were a number of children who lost parents and while this tragedy seems like a long time ago there are many people still living with its consequences and that of subsequent events like the recent civil was in Sri Lanka.

I have wanted to try and raise some money for charity for a number of years and the idea of pushing myself on a long trek has always appealed to me but when Simon my training partner brought this to my attention it captured my imagination as it would be a chance to be part something bigger with a lot more impact than I could hope to achieve by myself.

By joining something established I could maximise the amount of money I could raise and be sure it went back to the areas and communities I would be visiting.

Sport has been a positive influence for me and I have been lucky enough to be able to follow my passions to watch and participate all over the world but am acutely aware many people don’t have that luxury.

By doing this I want to push myself harder and further than I have done before so that I can help make a difference to people while I am visiting their country something that not always possible when traveling conventionaly.

It’s not going to be easy close to 200 miles in 8 days is roughly 20 Miles a day in 100% humidity or put it another way almost half a million steps on a treadmill in a sauna !

There is already significant interest in this due to the involvement of Sir Ian Botham who has completed a number of walks like this and raised over £1,000,000 doing so. Hopefully this interest will help hit my target fundraising goal as there is already a buzz about this on social media and press.

Read more here http://www.beefysbigsrilankawalk.com/

For any business sponsors I will wear a shirt with logos on where possible and publicise your support through social media while I am walking.

For friends and family and other sponsors I will either send you a post card or bring a small present back for you to show my appreciation.

All it remains to say is “Bohoma istuti” or Thank you very much in Sir Lankan

Matthew

Donations sugestions

Any donations are greatly appreciated but anything over £20 gets you a post card or a present and anything over £50 a spot on the T-shirt.