BU students charity trek to Machu Picchu

As part of the RAG challenge BU students Marnie Joyce (Physiotherapy) and Ben Conway (Sport Management) raised a fantastic £4,875 for the Association of International Cancer Research.

Their challenge was a six day trek to Machu Picchu along the Salkantay pass, which is over 100km long and is known as the most challenging route to Machu Picchu. The journey involved entering six different ecosystems and walking across extremely undulating terrain. With the highest peak at 4650m and lowest point at 2300m, which shows the difficulty of the trek. On top of this they also had to deal with catching a nasty jungle bug, deadly spiders in tents and minor altitude sickness!

The twenty BU students involved in the trek had to raise £3000 each for the AICR charity in eight months, as Marnie points out they all did very different activities to raise their target amount:

“For example a few things I did was teaching cheerleading to children, car boot sales, a physiotherapy guest speaker event, band nights, newspaper articles, bucket collections and cake sales.”

Marnie & Ben would like to thank everyone who supported their charity fund raising and helped to make their trip an amazing success:maccu-piccu-trek-2

“Overall the experience challenged us in many ways, but it was also one of the most amazing, rewarding and unforgettable. But we could not have done it without your kind support, so thank you…As a team from Bournemouth University our total was £59,500! It took a lot of hard work and determination throughout the year, but thanks to your support we made it!”

Later on this year they will be visiting a laboratory in London, to meet the cancer research doctors who will be using the money they raised in their research, which will help to advance the diagnosis and treatment for cancer patients.

If you are interested in taking part in the RAG challenge there are three challenges running this year, you can find out more about these by visiting SUBU and asking for the RAG team.