Running For Charity: Hand In Hand International.

In the last few years, Jakob & Jakob – together with my dad, Jozef – have raised more than 70 000 SEK for charity. Reece’s Rainbow, UNICEF, the Children’s Ward at St Francis’ Hospital and Hope For Children are the organisations that we have supported through our running. This year, we have chosen to raise money for another kind of organisation. Hand in Hand International was founded in 2003 by Dr Kalpana Sankar and Percy Barnevik, and their initial goal was to get local children out of factories and into schools. With time however, it became clear that in order to deal effectively with child labor they needed to get to the root of the problem: combating poverty. And what better way to deal with this problem than creating jobs? Which is why Hand in Hand started to focus on fighting poverty through creating jobs with grassroots entrepreneurship. In November 2012, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a statement calling on African leaders to “work together to foster job creation and entrepreneurship throughout the continent as critical ways to build a more prosperous and sustainable future for all.” Hand in Hand has supported the creation of some 1.38 million businesses and 1.96 million jobs worldwide to date, and their long term is to create 10 million jobs for some of the world’s poorest residents.

Jakob & Jakob and Jozef have decided to support Hand in Hand International and will raise money for the charity in connection with their big adventure this year; the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc. We hope that you, our readers, supporters, friends, families and co-workers will once again take up the challenge and donate money to this honourable cause. We are still in the process of establishing an online donating webpage – just as we have done in the past – and as soon as we have it ready we will let you know. Please help us break our records and reach 100 000 SEK of total donations for our combined charities!