Charity Update
The charity has been in existence for just 6 years
NEURAM Foundation Conferences
Since 2017 we have also supported conferences organised by the NEURAM Foundation in Mauritus, the latest was a conference on Spasticity in June 2019 NEURAM Foundation Conferences
AFSCIN Conferences
The charity has also supported the staff and peer support in Tanzania and other African countries to attend the inaugural AFSCIN conference in 2016 and subsequent conferences in 2017 and 2018 helping bridge the SCI services in Africa.
Ride Danny
In 2018 Hotchillee embraced the Ride Danny campaign with Susie to celebrate the life of her husband and one of our closest friends, Danny Turnbull who pioneered the first London to Paris cycle ride to include SCI injured handcyclists alongside able bodied cyclists in the Stoke Mandeville Team of 2012.
Tanzania Project.
We continue to actively support the development of the spinal injury unit at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, (KCMC) in Moshi, Tanzania. The spinal cord injured patients moved into the new dedicated unit in late 2014. The charity funds specialist staff from Stoke Mandeville National Spinal Injuries Centre to provide education and training for staff working in the new unit. The impact has been significant since 2012 when we first got involved with KCMC.
Back then a significant number of Spinal cord injured patients were dying from complications including urinary tract Infections; septicaemia following skin infections to areas where pressure sores went untended; and respiratory infections. It felt like pre 1940s before Professor Ludwig Guttmann came along to pioneer care, treatment and rehabilitation of those suffering spinal cord injury.
The work of Kilimanjaro Association Spinal Injury (KASI) is also supported by our charity and has provided peer support to patients with spinal cord injury and their families. Their latest reports are available on the website. They have also put forward an extended business plan which we supported and extended their work to other areas including Arusha.
A multidisciplinary team visited KCMC again in November 2017 to assess the continued progress and provide some more hands on education and training to the nurse and therapists working there.
London to Paris ... again
2014 London to Paris cycle ride raised £12K for our charity so thank you all for supporting us. The 2015 London to Paris event was sponsored by Patron Capital, Stewarts Law and Twenty3Cycles also raised in excess of £10K for the charity
See our gallery for last year’s and this year's pictures. It was a huge contrast with a wet and windy ride into Paris and the Champs Elysee in 2014 compared to a hot and energy sapping ride in 2015, but on both occasions all out team arrived safely. Our handcyclists always lead the 450 strong peleton into Paris which is utterly awesome.
The 2015 London to Paris event was sponsored by Patron Capital, Badby Park, Wellspect, Stewarts Law and Twenty3 Cycles and we had 7 riders who rode the 330 mile ride over the 3 very hot days. We averaged between 15 and 20 miles per hour so it was definitely no picnic. Timed sections including sprints, climbs each day created a really special atmosphere and the back up team looked after us and the bikes throughout.
Our riders this year were Alan Cook; Kirsty Laurd; Tim Street; Divan Kombrink; Tom Morgan; Martin McShane and David Griffiths. Kirsty and Martin picked up special awards for their ride groups (Group 6 and 5 respectively). These are voted for by the ride captains and based on the spirit, energy and support they bring to the group. Brilliant effort
We arrived in Paris on 27th June in a 450 strong peleton and were delighted to see our friends and families there waiting.