Balerno resident Daithi Heneghan is set to undergo a gruelling 4,477 km cycle, climbing the equivalent of four Mount Everests in aid of East African charity COCO, which seeks to provide education to impoverished children.
The arduous journey from Turin, Italy to the North Cape, Norway this summer will see Irish-born Heneghan pushed to extremes, a challenge he will relish to aid a worthy cause.
Heneghan will be supporting himself on the journey and sleeping wild on at least ten of the nights - he’s preparing for this by sleeping in his garden at his home in Scotland. This also means he’ll be carrying seven kilos of equipment in four bags on the bike.
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The reason for this challenge is to raise money for East African charity COCO. Founded by Olympian Steve Cram and former pilot Jim Panton, COCO develops community schools in the region, provides agricultural training and offers small loans to budding entrepreneurs.
Heneghan said: “I saw the impact that education can make in poor countries. I looked at my own country and when I was born, most people left the country. Very few people finished secondary school, never mind university. Whereas now, nearly 80% of the people in Ireland go to university and it's one of the richest countries in the world.
“The Kenyan government wants every school to have a laboratory and a library included in them. So my aim is to try and raise as much as I can of that £70,000 to help them have some of the advantages that I got over the years. That’ll keep me going when it gets hard.
“I don’t know why but I love challenges. I just keep pushing myself as hard as I possibly can. It’s just so great to be on your own doing nothing but cycling all the time.
“I'm 57 and my wife is very worried about me doing this adventure. She is so worried that she's made me get a will prepared...you know, just in case!”
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The money raised by Heneghan’s cycle will go towards creating a new library and laboratory in a school in Kenya as part of the country’s new STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths - curriculum, which aims to lift children out of poverty.
500 pupils will benefit from the new facilities, which cost £70,000 or £16.66 per kilometre of the event.
