Charlotte in the running to help a forest hero’s family
Late one night travelling with work, I had a fit of jet lag and registered for the Brighton Marathon.
Ludicrously, I’d only started running a few weeks before, so it gave me a goal (an ambitious one) and anyway, it seemed ages away.
Maybe not, because in just over a week, on Sunday, April 14 I’ll be by the seaside preparing to run my very first, very own marathon. A marathon is 26.2 miles long!
For many years, an activist named Hapsoro lived and worked to protect Indonesia’s forests and the people living there.
Hapsoro, husband to Niken, and father to three children, Galuh, Elang, and Arum.
He was beloved in Indonesia and beyond, a dear friend of EIA’s and a true hero of the forest.
In October, I was on the road with EIA and Indonesian friends Minang and Zain when we got the news that he had died suddenly. Their words said so much: “he was our best friend.”
The Hapsoro Trust Fund Initiative has been set up to help support his family, and I want my marathon fundraising to be for this.
So if you would like to donate, I would be thrilled.
This fund is in a bank account not a UK charity, so I am taking donations direct, the old-fashioned way. I’ll collect all the money raised and make a one-off transfer to the fund.
So if you would like to sponsor me the two secure ways of doing it are:
* you can send a cheque to me at the address below, or
* you can donate via Paypal.
For PayPal, email me at charlottedavies [at] eia-international.org and I’ll send you all the details. Having sponsored a few people before, this method is actually easier than filling out a long form online!
There’s a whole back story about how discovering running has changed my life for the better, helped me grow and given me self-knowledge, along with pleasure (and pain). But now the marathon day is coming, it’s far bigger than that. So I would like to sincerely thank everyone who has supported me in my endeavour so far. Niken, family and friends, the Indonesian and EIA network, thank-you so much, and thank-you dear reader for your support.
My colleague Faith wrote a lovely blog about Hapsoro and special times with his family, which you can read here. As you can imagine, the world needs more people like him.
Thank you!
* Please make cheques payable to Charlotte Davies and send to:
Charlotte Davies
Environmental Investigation Agency
62-63 Upper Street
London
N1 0NY