The dad of two is set to take part in a challenge to swim from England to France to make people aware of refugees' and asylum seekers' lives being at stake.
Duncan McAuley, 35, will lead a relay team in swimming the English Channel from Dover to Calais this month to raise thousands of pounds for refugees. At the same time, he also aims to raise awareness of the need to fight for a fairer asylum system that is more welcoming to those seeking sanctuary in the UK who are often forced to make perilous journeys packed into small and often unsafe boats.
Duncan, who has led the Newcastle -based refugee charity, Action Foundation, since last June, said: “In the last five years, at least 150 refugees have died crossing the Channel with some estimates putting that number much higher. My hope is that by taking on this challenge to swim from England to France, we can in some small way increase people’s awareness of the individual lives at stake, their hopes, ambitions, fears, and memories.”
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The five-strong team is made up of Duncan and university friends, Daniel Gibson and Richard Longley, from Leeds; Ryan Buchanan, from Southampton and Andrew Burke, who’s coming over to take part in the challenge from his home in Florida. Duncan stressed that they were not trying to replicate the journey undertaken by desperate refugees but instead raising awareness of the difficulties refugees face.
He said: “We will be doing this with months of training, wearing wetsuits and as a relay team with a support boat looking after us. We hope our journey across the Channel will draw the public’s attention to their journey. One which has taken them from their home countries; their loved ones, culture, and history, to ours to make a new home and begin a new journey here in the UK.
“Each of us will swim for an hour at a time and if we get near our target pace of two miles per hour, that will mean each person swimming two or three legs. We’re hoping we get the right weather conditions in which case it should take us between 12 and 14 hours.”
Training for the event, which is scheduled for either May 25th or 26th depending on the weather conditions, has begun in earnest with Duncan swimming in the River Tees and off Saltburn beach, near where he lives in Stockton, with his wife, Rachel and their two boys, Ezra and Jonah.
He explains: “It’ll be pretty cold in May with the average temperature estimated at 11.3 degrees C, that’s the same temperature as a cold plunge pool. Cold acclimatisation is an important part of our training and I’ve been making sure I’m getting out of the heated swimming pool and into the cold water of the river and sea as much as possible to help my body adjust.”
Money raised by the swim will go to Action Foundation which supports refugees and asylum seekers in the North East with housing, free English teaching, digital inclusion, and drop-in advice. Ten percent of the proceeds will also go to the RNLI in recognition of their amazing work rescuing people from the Channel.
Anyone wishing to donate can do so at https://actionfoundation.enthuse.com/cf/swim-for-refugees .
For more information on the work of Action Foundation visit www.actionfoundation.org.uk
