Walking 300 Miles and Fundraising for Local Charity

Every summer Baca launches 12 weeks of getting active called the 3000 mile challenge in order to raise vital funds for their services in Loughborough. This results in all their supporters donning their walking boots or trainers and hopping onto their bikes in order to clock up the miles for sponsorships. This year CWS is hoping to raise a significant chunk of money in exchange for a significant chunk of miles.

Who Are Baca?

The Baca Charity are a charity based in Loughborough, who believe that every young person has great potential and deserves a chance to realise it free from fear and danger. They work specifically with young people over the age of 16+ who are seeking asylum in the UK. Some of these young people have been victims of trafficking and all will have been forced to leave their countries of origin in order to reach safety. Baca helps them to achieve a positive future through providing specialist supported accommodation and holistic development training.

We have spent a number of years working with Baca to create their case management system Acacia. This is a bespoke web application which allows their caseworkers to record all the essential information and contact hours for each young person in their care.

The Challenge

You may be wondering why Baca has chosen 3000 miles as the distance for their annual challenge. 3000 miles is significant because it is the average distance a young person who is seeking asylum in the UK will travel to reach safety. This will often be over the course of two years or more. That’s why we have chosen to try and raise a whopping £3000 towards their essential work. In order to earn that reward, we are aiming to walk 300 miles as a team. We will be completing some challenging hikes in the peaks in order to clock up the miles and are hoping to inspire generosity as well as raise the profile of this amazing charity and the work they do. Thankfully our journey will be a lot safer than many of the journeys taken by forced migrants, but we are all quite unfit, so 300 miles will definitely be a stretch! 

What will my donation go towards?

Every penny of your donations will go towards the work Baca does with young people. Their work is all about helping young people develop and grow, equipping them for their lives and helping them to have a healthy, happy future full of possibility. 

Their work is based around key areas including:

Housing and Living

Baca provides a home for all their young people. This helps them to meet each individual's basic needs and helps them to find belonging and safety. Their specialist supported accommodation appropriately and sensitively safeguards young people (girls and boys) taking into account the unique vulnerabilities around trafficking, asylum seeking and exploitation. They use a staged approach to accommodation, which enables the young people to progress towards independence whilst having the appropriate support in place at each stage of their development.

Education and Training

For many young people first arriving at Baca, vital english language skills are severely lacking. This is then of course a high priority for them. However many of these young people have had no formal education or their school years have been disrupted by war and conflict. This means often they will have lower literacy levels and significant gaps in their knowledge of key subjects.

At Baca it is not just about learning but also relearning how to learn. Baca uses a holistic approach that offers pastoral and educational care and supports the young people’s personal and social journey alongside learning English as a second language.

Sports

A significant part of Baca’s holistic approach to encouraging young people to learn and grow in their new homes is sports. Sports are of course great for developing better health and fitness, but they also teach key social skills and help to build confidence. Sports also teach young people how to overcome challenges in a low pressure environment and generally encourages young people to learn more about themselves and others.

Art Therapy 

Art therapy is recognised as a great tool for helping to understand and heal young people from past experiences. Where language may be a barrier art can be an effective tool for facilitating communication. Art and creativity can encourage young people to take control through difficult changing circumstances, tell their story and build their own sense of identity.

How can I donate to the 3000 miles Challenge?

If all of this has inspired you to be generous and show your support for Baca, you can donate to our efforts through our justgiving page. Any amount is very welcome and we are very grateful for your support. If you are eligible then please consider adding gift aid to your donation as it can hugely increase our total at no extra cost to you. Once you have donated you can check out our page in order to track our progress and see if we can reach our goal of £3000 for 300 miles.