Hey friends - I'm running my first (and last 🫠) marathon this year to raise money for Amnesty International. Training has been tough enough -more than one injury has been involved and more than a few tears... So the day itself will be a long old slog with no records broken, but I'm hoping you will ramp up your sponsorship in direct proportion to how grim this is going to be for me!

Amnesty is a charity that I've been involved with since I was in school writing Christmas cards to prisoners of conscience, and I really believe that in these times of misinformation their work is more important than ever. We're unfortunately all too familiar with the terrible human rights abuses currently happening in Gaza, West Bank, Sudan and the DRC, but there are also so many concerning things happening in Ireland, UK, the US and other "first world" countries (e.g. use of "crime prevention" technology, restrictions on non-violent protests). If our governments are left unchecked, these measures will impact all of our lives eventually. Organisations like Amnesty play a vital role in publicising and campaigning against the human rights issues these measures create.

I really really appreciate any support you can give, in whatever amount you can spare. And please do look at Amnesty's website for some live cases that you can help with right now just by sending an email: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions

Thank you so much 💖

Christine