The Cause

India is a special country to me, having visited in 2013 and working closely with colleagues throughout India for the past 14 years. It is such an incredibly diverse country, with the most friendly, hard working and enthusiastic people you could ever wish to meet.

Whilst we're celebrating the easing of our restrictions, India is at crisis point and needs our help. People are unable to get life saving oxygen due to lack of supplies, and crematoriums are overloaded from the sheer number of deaths. Journalists throughout the country report that some areas have ten times the number of deaths that the official records/media account for.

With 25 times the population of the UK and the same GDP, mass vaccination is a mammoth task. Please donate what you can to help provide the resources India need to get through the worst of the pandemic. I have decided to donate all proceeds to Minhaj Welfare Foundation which you can read about at the bottom of this page.

The Challenge

To help encourage you to part with your money, it is only fair that I go through some level of suffering. The challenge I will undertake is to cover the vertical height of Everest in ascent + descent in under 24 hours by bagging multiple summits of Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh (walking). Everest is 8849m high and Arthur's seat is 251m, however my start point will be approximately 38m above sea level, meaning each successful trip up and back down will be 426m towards my target. 21 summits will give me more than enough at 8946m, which will be my target for the day. I estimate that an average summit (including getting back down) will take 45 mins total, so I expect it to be about 15h45m of constant ascent/descent. India and my knees afterwards will thank you for digging deep for such a worthy cause!

Thanks for taking the time to read this, you can find more about Minhaj Welfare Foundation below:

"Minhaj Welfare Foundation is working in India where a sharp rise in Covid-19 case numbers has caused a lethal, second wave of the crisis. Covid cases in April 2021 are rising faster in India than the first wave last year, as the newer variants of the virus such as B1617 are a lot more transmissible and deadly. India has seen a record number of new cases recently, around 349,691 bringing its total to more than 16.9 million right now. It has also reported another 2,767 deaths in the last few days pushing Indias fatalities to 192,311. Hospitals in India are overwhelmed with oxygen shortages. Show your support today and Breathe for India"