Please Support The 'Mad Hatters' and the Run For Congo

Some mates of mine have been doing some extraordinary (or crazy depending on your view) over the past few months.  Dom Goggins, a good mate of mine, and an assorted cast have been doing marathons, triathlons, ultra marathons, iron man triathlons and goodness knows what else for the very good cause of leukemia research.  They are doing this under the apt sobriquet of the 'Mad Hatters Challenge' and looking to raise £10,000 over the next few months.  I would encourage anybody to donate via the following link:

http://www.justgiving.com/madhatterschallenge

Next week, Dom and his mate, Chris Jackson are heading to the Congo, a country decimated by  War in the past decade.  It is an extraordinary thing to do.  The Congo is still, as they are more than aware, a hugely dangerous place.  6 million people were killed in the horrendous Congo War.  Although the war officially ended in 2003, it is still a highly dangerous, violent place (45,000 deaths a month), with the worst example of human tragedy that war brings with it.   Almost four million refugees were created by the terrible war.  Sexual violence against women is at a horrific scale.  Poverty is amongst the worst in the world.

The continuing tragedy in the Congo is one of the reasons that what Dom and Chris is doing is so important.  They are raising awareness of a tragedy that the near amnesiac 24 hour news media has all but forgotten about.  Raising awareness of the people whose lives have been utterly devastated by the terrible conflict.  What they are doing is immensely impressive.  I know that what some of what they see is going to be pretty haunting but, I'm sure Dom would be the first to remind me, not as haunting as what the people of Congo - having lived through a terrible war for more than a decade have had to face.  

There is more about the 'Run For Congo' at this blog:

http://runforcongo.wordpress.com/

Do support them, do spread the word and do donate to a very worthwhile cause.