Isla's Epic Swim - A Big Challenge And Incredible Fundraising

I've been fundraising for an amazing organisation for the last 6 years and love them. Homeopathy for Health in Africa do incredible work in Tanzania, life changing, wonderful work. The organisation was initially set up to support people using homeopathy who have HIV and AIDS. In reality this means that means side effects of conventional medication are reduced where people are taking ARVs for example, they are able to remain on the medication for longer and so many symptoms are helped using the homeopathy. The project has expanded since and is doing great work in more areas now too. www.homeopathyforhealthinafrica.org

Isla, my 11 year old daughter has been aware of my working with them and previously off her own initiative undertook a readathon for them and raised £300. That was back in 2014.

This time, having decided to do her first 500m Open Water organised swim in Derwent Water (where the remake of Swallows and Amazons was filmed), we discussed it and decided to fundraise for Homeopathy for Health in Africa (HHA). What target to set though? '£1000' she said, determinedly.

'Oh, OK. £1000. Maybe we can hit that' I pondered.

'Well, then we'll aim for £2000.' I love this girl - she's definitely a girl that can!! But she had a doubting mother.

'Maybe let's keep it at £1000 and see where we get to.'

We decided that was a plan. And smashed the £1k target. Upped it to £2k. Went through that. £2.5? We had friends promise us an extra £50 on top of their already generous donations if we made £2.5k. Of course we did it. £3k? done. Final target £3.5k (I was getting tired as fundraising manager, solo mama and full time worker by then and running out of steam!). Final target achieved just after our swim - and we're even now a little bit over! Our existing total stands at £3560. It's currently open and accepting funds until the 8th August 2018: https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/emcolley4

Part way through our fundraising, Isla met a girl who had had to have part of her leg amputated, so decided that instead of HHA, she'd like to fundraise for whatever had meant this had happened. She wanted to swim the 500m distance blindfolded (not entirely sure why that bit was so - but she is one to challenge herself!) without using her legs. After some discussion - and the fact we'd already raised some money for HHA, we decided perhaps a second swim was in order where we could do it as she wanted - especially as I couldn't see the Epic Swim team being OK with a blindfolded, without legs swim! Watch this space!

The swim itself was a challenge mentally to Isla - we'd trained lots in a local river, but a lake has a different feel to it. I knew she could do it but there was definitely encouragement and persuasion needed at times. Which made it clear to me she was being challenged - she normally doesn't like it if I encourage her.... It was truly amazing to be able to swim at the side of her for the whole swim. We did it in 18.41 minutes and I'm really happy with our time. Some took just over 6 minutes and that's great too. One of her big challenges was that she was disappointed with herself and felt she should have been faster. She felt she'd let herself down and was bothered by this. My philosophy at these events is it's about survival and completion - and a whole lot of enjoyment. But she wanted to be faster.

So I chatted to a friendly kayaker (these events are so well supported by such great folk) and asked if he could tell her how amazingly well she was doing. She was one of the youngest there (you can do the swim from 11 upwards), and had nearly completed it by then. I told him she was disappointed - and he was brilliant at encouraging her too. Then he mentioned if we came back to the jetty he'd take us into the lake on a rib (rigid inflatable boat - for those - like me who had no idea!). We took up the offer - and then he offered that Isla could take the controls for the return journey. Much more than we had expected when we got into the lake that morning.

The photos here were generously donated by Peter Bratley, a photographer that my dad got chatting to at the event. Having told Pete about Isla's challenge he kindly sent us the images with permission to use as we wanted.

I had one of the most beautiful swims I've done, with one of the most beautiful beings I know. Very very grateful for the opportunity of all of it, and for the support of the community around us. We just did a swim - friends, family and colleagues made it truly amazing.

Thanks for reading!