NICHE International is a small medical charity working in international newborn care.  Our aim is to reduce infant and child mortality by assisting in the provision of training courses and other healthcare projects to doctors, nurses, midwives and allied healthcare staff in resource poor areas of the world.  Our model is fully sustainable as we not only teach life-saving skills, but we also train selected candidates to become instructors.  In this way, the course candidates take home and embed best practices in their own hospitals and health centres, and qualified local trainers continue to deliver and evaluate the training - and in their turn, train more instructors.  Once sufficient numbers of instructors are sharing the specially devised Newborn Care Course, NICHE's work in the region is mostly done.

Alison:  I've been a trustee of NICHE International since its foundation in 2017.  Our instructors - leading resuscitation experts and paediatricians - are all volunteers and NICHE has no overheads.   All our funds are used to deliver these life-saving courses and provide associated equipment. Visit the NICHE website for more information on what we do.  www.nicheinternational.org.uk 

Helen:  Alison and I have been running on and off, over the course of our friendship, though rarely together, so I am looking forward to us sharing this 10k and getting our jiggly hips and dodgy hamstrings over the finish line!

Thank you for helping us out!