The Gauntlet

What is the Gauntlet? Well let me save you the trouble of
googling it.

The Gauntlet is a run held by Mucky Races and is basically where people run through
mud and obstacles, which does sound a bit fun but this is their scary
description of it on their website:

“One of nature’s toughest muddiest obstacle course races! This

course has numerous water pits and possibly the toughest mud pits in the UK.
Other obstacles include the infamous 9 Bar Wall, spider webs, trenches of
turmoil and more. We bring this all together into one extremely mad mudfest.
Two distances, 6km and 12km of adrenaline charge mayhem. These courses are
built to test.”

I've chosen to do the 6km because naturally to people who are very clumsy this would
be challenging, and unfortunately I am one of those people L.  But luckily
I have a friend joining me! So a big shoutout to Sephrena who is brave enough
to do this run with me. With the both of us doing it together it is bound to be
a comedy act as we are not the most graceful people in world.

Running 6km may not seem like a challenge to most people, but adding in obstacles like

spider webs (that is very worrying actually, I hope there are not actual
spiders involved eek) and mud. Well that is very challenging to uncoordinated
people like me.

So donate on my page as all of the money goes to East African Playgrounds and I've already made a post on how amazing they are so if you haven’t read it yet then

I suggest you do it now!

Also there will be a dvd of me doing this run and if I raise over £100 I will share it with you all and you can laugh at me doing

this lovely mud run.

The run is on the 6^th of April so until then I will keep you all updated on

training and if you want to do the run as well then you can check out the link
below.

Merry
Christmas! X

My
fundraising page – http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/nikipatel

 Mucky Races – http://www.muckyraces.co.uk/the-gauntlet/

East African Playgrounds

You're probably wondering what is East African Playgrounds (EAP)?

Founded by two graduates from The University of Leeds in 2009, EAP is a small charity that believes that play is important for children's upbringing and development. In the UK, the government funds millions of pounds each year in children's activities, like building playgrounds. But in Uganda, where the majority of the population are children, they do not have any government funding. And this is where EAP comes in!

Each summer, EAP sends out 150 volunteers to Uganda to help design these playgrounds. However they also rely on the help from local Ugandan merchants in sourcing all building materials as this develops the Ugandan economy. They also develop long-term employment and training opportunities, as young people are taught how skills like welding when building these playgrounds.

Why play?

I think we can all agree that when you are a child, it is important that there is time in the day dedicated purely to playtime. Play is vital for endless reasons. To name a few; it has the potential to contribute to the social and economic development of communities; it can transform children’s lives for the better and allows children to develop a creative mind away from school. EAP designs playgrounds that provide high quality, fun and safe playgrounds as well as games and arts programmes.

a cool picture telling you  why play is valuable 

Volunteering with EAP will be an incredible experience as I will get to see first-hand, what your money is able to give these children and their cute little smiles! 100% of all donations will be spent on making these playgrounds J

roughly where your money goes 

Links:
My fundraising page - http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/nikipatel 

East African Playgrounds webpage - http://www.eastafricanplaygrounds.org/

First blog post (eek!)

Hey there!

So I'm Nikita (you can call me Niki though) I'm 20 years old and I'm currently in my second year at the University of Southampton studying History and Politics. 

I've recently signed up to take part in a gorilla trek with student adventures. In a nutshell I will be fundraising on behalf of East African Playgrounds (I will write a blog post about them sometime in the near future) and in return I get to spend some time in Uganda trekking and volunteering with children. 

Think is such an exciting (but daunting) experience and I'm going to blog about the whole experience here! 

Here are some lovely links for you to check out in the meantime before my journey gains some momentum:

My fundraising page - http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/nikipatel 

My adventure - https://studentadventures.co.uk/System/gorilla_information_pack

East African Playgrounds webpage - http://www.eastafricanplaygrounds.org/

YouTube video by East African Playgrounds -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceu_AJvco7c

Niki x