Shoe4Africa
What's it all about?
I am proud to be an ambassador for the charity Shoe4Africa, an all-volunteer organisation run by my good friend Toby Tanser, that does much valuable work in the empowering Africans through sport, education and health provision. I have so far been involved in collecting and transporting kit donated by Loughborough and Hallamshire Harrier athletes to Kenya. I was also privileged to recently attend the opening of the Shoe4Africa Martin Lel Primary School and hope to assist in twinning the school with a primary school from my (and Toby’s) home town of Sheffield.
With so many inspiring projects including the building of a children’s hospital, women only races, AIDS awareness initiatives, peace races, food drives etc etc I look forward to getting more involved in the future.

Please visit the website www.shoe4africa.org for more information and ways in which you too can get involved.
At the opening of the Shoe4Africa Martin Lel Primary School 

Kit4Sudan
What's it all about?
This is an appeal started by myself and a friend Phil Tulba back in 2005. Phil, my housemate in my final year at Loughborough University, is half Sudanese and each Christmas goes out to Sudan to see family and train with the Sudanese Athletics Federation. Moved by the enthusiasm, despite the lack of means, of many of the athletes out there we decided to start a kit collection approaching fellow Loughborough athletes for any spare tracksuits, t-shirts, shorts, trainers/spikes (minus mud!) etc etc. We had an overwhelmingly generous response and it was in June of 2005 that the first consignment of approximately 30 kilos was sent out. This was kindly sponsored by Vince Wilson from Running Specialist to the full postage amount of around £180.

Here Phil tells you a bit about exactly where the kit goes to:
Firstly, a bit about Sudan: of its 50 years of independence 38 years have been in civil war between a mainly Christian and 'black' south and Muslim and Arab north. It is estimated that 2 million people have perished in the last 23 years of war which was played out in the south. This resulted in up to 4 million refugees, many of which have ended up in vast camps just south of Khartoum.
 
Thanks to the recent success of a number of Sudanese athletes, athletics is increasingly seen as a means out of poverty. Hundreds of children from all faiths and backgrounds regularly turn up at the track. They are generally very poor, many in only their school uniforms with their 'kit' underneath and run in bare feet. Where they do have trainers they are in the most appalling state with flapping soles and toes poking through the uppers.”
“The recipients are typically 10-20 year-olds who train at the main (only) synthetic athletics track in Khartoum. Many of the children live locally and come to train up to 6 days a week and participate in light track work between specific sessions and time trial races to instill a culture of competition. There is a huge wealth of talent amongst them – indeed, if you strain your eyes enough at the middle picture below, you will see one of the recipients of the initial consignment we sent out is Kaki Abubaker (he’s 4th from the right on the back row of the middle pic below) – the 2008 World Indoor 800m champion! It is also great to see many of the other athletes performing well at the world level in both junior and senior ranks.

Since the first consignment was sent out we have continued to receive more donations of kit from a variety of sources including friends from training clubs (such as Basingstoke AC, Stockport and Hallamshire Harriers), as well as end-of-range brand new kit from The Running Fox running shop in Loughborough and makers of specialist running socks and accessories Hilly Clothing Ltd in Stockport.

Update Jan 2007
The latest consignment of kit has recently been sent out – 96kg this time – a PB! Thanks to all those that donated kit, the majority of which was collected in Loughborough. Also thanks to CW Cargo in Manchester for giving us a discounted rate of £180 for shipping – miles cheaper than Royal Mail! This was very generously covered in full by Hugh Shields who responded to our appeal in Athletics Weekly.

Update May 2009
Never mind cardboard boxes; we needed a full on industrial container for this load! An extremely generous donation of literally hundreds of t-shirts and vests from Asics, together with further collections from Stockport Harriers and Havelock Primary school, plus a number of individual donations from friends, combined to make a grand total of over 1000kg! Thanks to the negotiations of defence attaché John Rollins out in Sudan, we have been extremely fortunate to receive funding for the entire shipment from the Norwegian Embassy through its ‘Unity in Sport’ programme; all ₤4000+ of it. I know who I’ll vote for at the next Eurovision Song Contest ;-).

How you can get involved:

I continue to collect kit in the HiPAC at Loughborough University, so any donations are gratefully received. Also greatly appreciated are contributions towards postage costs for the kit. As a guide, 100kg costs £295. If you would like to assist, you can contact at info@beckylyne.com and I’ll let you know how much stuff I have cluttering up my spare room ready to send! As is evident from an excerpt from an email I received from Jama Aden, the former head coach for Sudan Athletics, your support really makes a difference: 

'The goods that you sent arrived. It's great stuff and I really appreciate your support, it means a lot to me and my athletes. It helps a lot of kids who do not have anything whatsoever.' 

Many thanks.