Please consider sponsoring me £1 (or more!) per 1km of my winter Cold Water Winter Swimming Challenge 🥶 as I attempt to swim 10km at a chilly 10 C or below over the next 10 weeks 🥶 to raise funds and awareness for this wonderful life and livelihood-saving cause. This is a major personal challenge (I never used to swim in anything less that 30 C!) and has to be achieved safely over multiple chilly dips this winter - with a time limit of about 10 minutes each swim.

In summary, the aim of this 5 year 'British Society for Surgery of the Hand - LION Project' in Malawi is to support the creation of a sustainable new Hand Surgery Service at the LION hospital (the recently opened Lilongwe Institute of Orthopaedics and Neurosurgery). We are achieving this through the specialist education and training of local orthopaedic surgeons, therapists and clinical officers. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world and sadly has the third highest rate of fatal road traffic accidents and also panga knife (machete) injuries - with severe trauma often caused to the hands and wrists. These injuries are not only devastating to the individual, but also to the whole family, as livelihoods, and potentially then lives, are lost. Prior to this project, many patients would have had to have undergone amputations for such devastating injuries and many are subsistence farmers.

I joined this inspirational multi-disciplinary team about 2 years ago and have seen the incredible hard work and dedication that all of the volunteers have provided so far, teaching and training and helping to make a difference to the lives of so many severely hand injured patients since the project launched in January 2023.

We are continuing to raise the much needed funds to support our volunteers heading out to Malawi and provide vital surgical equipment, dressings and splints in this low resource setting.

Previously, I have done various other fundraising activities with family and friends - including holding Malawian Craft sales, Homemade Bake sales and adding as many 'nautical' miles (sailing, swimming, paddling, rowing and even wing foiling!) to ‘cross’ the equivalent distance of beautiful Lake Malawi as part of the BOLOS Challenge for the LION project last year. But this is the toughest 🥶for me so far!

Thank you so much for your support!

Every £1 goes straight to the Project.