2nd Wiley Run for a Dream

Last weekend I traveled to Singapore to take part in the second Wiley Run for a Dream.

Last year the team from John Wiley & Sons’ Singapore office raised SG$12,500 for Mitrataa which was used to establish the Wiley Dream Centre, our second Dream Centre situated in Chandol in Kathmandu.

This year they set their sights even higher. So at 7am on Sunday morning (19^th September) I arrived at East Coast Park in Singapore to join the eager group who were taking part in either a 10km run, 5km run or 5km walk. It was fantastic to see so many people come out to enjoy the fun, a number of companies helped through sponsorship of the event and they had sent representatives to run with the group too.

I joined the 10km run group which was a killer. After a few months spent in Australia for winter I was not at all accustomed to the heat and humidity in Singapore! I crawled to the finish and took the rest of the day to cool down!

Once everyone had made it back to our base tent and had a chance to recover it was time for the presentations. Each of the event sponsors were presented with a trophy in recognition of their support. Whilst final calculations were being made as to which teams won each section of the competition, it was my turn to receive the cheque on behalf of Mitrataa. I went up on stage and was excited enough when Ian Garrard from Wiley told me that they had aimed to raise SG$15,000 this year. However Ian then revealed that this year’s event had in fact raised SG$22,000 (over AU$17,000)! I was completely blown away. What an amazing effort!

I gave a thank you speech including a little bit of news about 1 girl in particular, one of our Dream Catchers scholars, as an illustration of the impact education can have on the lives of women and girls in Nepal. This was followed by the medal presentation. It was great to see that so many people had obviously been training hard in preparation for the event and it clearly had a positive impact on morale within the company.

So the next morning it was back to Kathmandu for me so that Bec, I and our team here could start plans on how best to use this donation. We are immensely grateful to everyone at Wiley and their partners for this support. Thank you to all who made it happen and those who took part! Looking forward to next year…