Marathon efforts to raise charity money

TEAM Oldham raise £20,000 for water aid charity. From left, Atiff Mazharf, Saif Ahmed, Shazad Saddique and Hasina Begum

DETERMINATION and overwhelming community support helped a team fundraisers conquer the Palestinian Marathon and half marathon and raise over £20,000 for charity.

The team, Atiff Mazhar, Mohammed Campbell, Hasina Begum, Saif Ahmed and Shazad Saddique trained hard in the wet and cold weather of Oldham before flying out to Palestine for the long-distance races along with a band of campaign supporters.

Their incredible efforts on March 31 helped the team double their original fundraising target of £10,000 for SKT Welfare, a UK-based charity delivering humanitarian aid in the world's poorest areas, including Gaza.

The £20,073.35 raised is enough for the charity to provide water for 242 days, a total of l12,100,000 litres of clean water for 70,000 people.

Atiff (38), who completed the full marathon in three hours and 42 minutes, said: "Our journey has been such a rollercoaster.

"This was our first fundraising campaign and we feel we surpassed our expectations.

"It is amazing how generous, positive and supporting the public have been."

"The training build up to the marathon was tough.

"Four four of us it was our first long distance challenge and we were training in extremely cold conditions.

"But the determination and will to do this for such a worthy cause pushed us to keep going."

In total over 7,000 runners from 65 different countries took part in the race, which begins at The Church of Nativity in Bethlehem and takes runners through two refugee camps - Al Aida and Ad Dheisheh - and along the West Bank Wall, with those taking on the marathon challenge running the race twice.

As the event cannot be run in one continuous circuit, with participants needing to double back on themselves to complete the full distance due to road blocks and a border, the race itself is a cause as it aims to raise awareness on the right to move freely.

Atiff, who finished in 28th place, said: "The event had a carnival feel - the locals were out in force on the street, kids with smiley faces high-fiving and running with you and the views were beautiful.

"I cant believe what we have achieved who would have thought of this, where this journey has taken us. This is the most amazing and rewarding thing we have done.

"Since returning we have been inundated with requests to have another fundraising campaign next year and asking if they can join in after they were inspired by our success."