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Buckinghamshire resident Tara Garritt is putting her best foot forward to help sick and disabled babies and children by tackling a five-day hike in India in aid of Action Medical Research.
The 43-year-old is heading to the Himalayas as part of her mission to raise £10,000 for the UK-wide children’s charity in 2016.
In October Tara, from Little Horwood, will walk from Dharamsala, the spiritual home of the Dalai Lama, through spectacular mountain landscapes and sleep under the stars in remote mountain camps before finishing the challenge at Laka Got, 3550m above sea level and well above the Himalayan snowline.
But she’s no stranger to extreme outdoor adventures, having already trekked through Jordan from the Dead Sea to Petra in April last year in temperatures up to 40C.
“The trek in Jordan was the most amazing thing I have ever done, even though it was harder work than I could have ever imagined,” she says. “The sense of achievement at the end was just incredible: the sights and the people made it so special, and it certainly gave me the bug for doing it again.”
When fundraising for the trek Tara smashed her £3,500 target and went on to raise £5,582.62 – and she is now going the extra mile and raise a total of £10,000 for Action Medical Research.
Tara, who was part of the team who organised a music festival and an auction packed with prizes from local firms to boost the coffers in 2014 before her Jordan trip, plans to hold a fundraising gig in Great Horwood on 6 February, ahead of the Let's Trek for Children in India challenge.
Action Medical Research has been funding medical breakthroughs since it began in 1952, including helping to introduce the first polio vaccines in the UK, developing the use of ultrasound in pregnancy and testing the rubella vaccine. It is currently funding research into meningitis, Down syndrome, epilepsy and premature birth, as well as some rare and distressing conditions that severely affect children, and Tara says the children’s charity’s work has helped to boost her fundraising.
“Once I began fundraising last time, the money started to come in and didn’t stop,” says Tara. “So many people’s lives have been affected by the work which Action Medical Research has funded and those who have healthy children realise how lucky they are to have benefitted from that research once they hear about it, so it has made my work much easier! Now I’m just trying to think of some other ways to raise money the second time around.”
To kickstart her efforts, popular local group The Cantells will be playing a special gig for Tara at Great Horwood Village Hall on Saturday 6 February 2016. Doors open at 7.30pm with the first set at 8pm and drinks will be available.
Tickets cost just £10 from The Crown Pub, Great Horwood.
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For high-res images of Tara on her trek in Jordan, please click on the links below:
https://www.action.org.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/press/tara_garritt.jpg
https://www.action.org.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/press/tara_garritt_2.jpg
https://www.action.org.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/press/tara_garritt_3.jpg
https://www.action.org.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/press/tara_garritt_4.jpg
NOTES TO EDITORS:
For more information on Action Medical Research, please contact Ellie Evans, Fundraising Communications Officer, on:
T 01403 327480
Follow us on Twitter at @actionmedres and @amr_events
Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/actionmedres
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Action Medical Research is a leading UK-wide charity working to save and change children’s lives through medical research. We believe that the diseases that devastate the lives of so many of our children can be beaten. We have been funding medical breakthroughs since we began in 1952 like the first polio vaccines in the UK, ultrasound in pregnancy and the rubella vaccine – helping to save thousands of children’s lives and change many more.
Just one breakthrough, however small, can mean the world.
Charity reg. nos 208701 and SC039284