Swimmers cover 372 miles in 24 hours to raise £20,000 for Action Duchenne
Howard Lake | 10 October 2008 | News
Thirty swimmers each swim a mile every hour to raise money for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy charity
High Wycombe Leisure Centre in Buckinghamshire hosted a 24-hour swimming challenge by thirty swimmers on Saturday 4th October 2008 to raise funds for Action Duchenne, the Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy charity. Over £20,000 was raised by the swimmers at the event, organised by Stewart Rush from Petersfield, Hampshire (www.2swim4life.com ). Stewart’s six year old son was diagnosed with Duchenne last year. The Buckingham Hotel and The Fox and Country Inn, Ibstone also provided discount on accommodation and food for the swimmers and staff of Action Duchenne that took part in the event.
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy affects 1 in 3,500 male births in the UK, and is most common of muscular dystrophies -sufferers are diagnosed usually by the age of 5. Duchenne affects the heart and respiratory system and many patients do not live past their twenties.
Of the thirty 24 hour participants only Sandy Simpson, Nicola Latty, Rory Fitzgerald, Simon Joyce, Lesley Zimmerman, Liz Dilley and Dusan Svoboda, managed to complete the challenge of swimming a mile every hour for 24 hours. All have impressive International and national achievement records in swimming. Successfully completing their challenge of twelve miles in twelve hours were Julia Hornig and Kate Roberts. Graham Hardie, a participant of the event, also successfully raised further funding from his employer, Microsoft, who has pledged to match his sponsorship up to £7,500.
Carl Tilson who is living with Duchenne and is an active campaigner for Action Duchenne said, “I have been living with Duchenne for 20 years and now it has got to the stage where I am paralysed and can’t walk or even feed myself. Everything has to be done for me. Many of my Duchenne friends have died. The worst thing is living with this death sentence on my head. They have made great strides in medical research but lack of government funding for clinical trials is holding back a cure or treatment, every event like this makes a difference.”
Nick Catlin, CEO of Action Duchenne said; “These events provide great opportunities to raise important funding for the charity and we thank all of those who have put such tremendous effort in participating and organising the event. Through our work with the Race Against Time Campaign where Action Duchenne was instrumental in bringing together scientists and researchers and two other charities, we have made a good start at raising awareness and funding for critical research. However, we need to do more and we need government support and funding. These critical fund raising events also provide an ideal opportunity for raise the profile of the charity and so bring our message to more people who need to be aware of the effects of this devastating life illness.”
-ends-
Notes to Editors
About Action Duchenne
Action Duchenne (formally Parent Project UK) was set up by Duchenne families in 2001 to promote new research for a cure for Duchenne. The charity has a strong record in funding research and has to date funded 8 major projects costing £800,000 and has lead the £1.6m DoH funding of the MDEX project. These projects have enabled much needed early work to be completed on exon skipping and other therapeutic approaches.
Action Duchenne holds an international conference every year to bring together researchers and families to exchange new research developments and provide a vital meeting venue for scientists.
In 2005 Action Duchenne launched the Duchenne Registry, the first National Duchenne database that holds gene information of people living with Duchenne and can be used to speed up the recruitment of patients for clinical trials.
In 2006 Action Duchenne launched a comprehensive learning and behaviour toolkit for use by parents and education professionals.
For more information please visit:
www.actionduchenne.org
Editors Contacts
Nick Catlin
CEO, Action Duchenne
Email:
ni**@ac************.org
Tel: 0208 556 955
Andreina West
PR Artistry Limited
Tel: 01491 639500
email:
An******@pr*****.uk
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.