Hope for the Young’s Team Challenge Event 2020

We did it!

A huge congratulations to everyone who took part in Hope for the Young’s Team Challenge Event 2020, by raising money, donating, and of course travelling the distance.

The theme this year was #DistanceTravelled

Based on an average distance of our young people’s journeys to the UK including; Eritrea (4,999 miles), Afghanistan (4,676 miles), Iran (3,410 miles), Syria (2,829 miles), Vietnam (5,734 miles) and many others, we aimed to reach a combined distance of 4000 miles throughout the month of October to try and raise £10,000.

We not only hit, but exceeded our target covering 5,916 miles and raising a grand total of £19,000 – almost double our original target!

This year was certainly uncharted territory so we were not quite sure how it would work without being able to host our usual Annual Walk in London. Little did we know, we had absolutely nothing to worry about. While many of our supporters went solo on their physical journeys, it was clear by following everybody’s Just Giving pages and seeing the images above, we were all part of one big team.

Our supporters’ journeys

It was wonderful to see our supporters’ JustGiving pages brimming with stories, activity and comments. We hope you found them as inspiring as we did to follow. We particularly enjoyed seeing the unique ways everyone interpreted the challenge this year. There were plenty of ideas to cover our target of 4000 collective miles, from hiking and walking to cycling, rowing and running.

Some covered 100 miles incrementally one day at a time, whilst others made a weekend of it and covered their distance in one go by camping along the way or undertaking mega bike rides and hikes. It was a joy to see the beautiful pictures from everybody’s challenges and very exciting to know that our team of supporters spanned the globe, including participants in Italy and Greece.

We want to give a special shout out to our youngest ever supporter, 4-year old Layla, who pushed herself and cycled around her nearest park as many times as she could – an amazing feat of willpower, thank you Layla!

Our team challenge event in numbers:

• 5,916 miles covered (almost the distance from London to Hong Kong!)
• 35 people took part
• 450 people donated
• Activities included: Walking, hiking, cycling, rowing, running
• People took part in 4 different countries
• Participants aged from 4 to 80 years old
• £19,000 raised (almost double our initial target!)

The full amount raised will be going directly to our Grants and Advocacy programme, supporting the young people we work with. The programme provides financial support and tailored advocacy to help young people access and succeed in education.