A sponsored challenge isn’t just a great way to raise money – it can also be a life-changing experience. Ann’s parents both died with dementia in 2001. Since then, Ann has been raising funds for Alzheimer Scotland and campaigning to improve understanding of dementia. “I completed a Great Wall of China trek back in 2018 and really enjoyed it. During Covid, it felt even more important to do something big to support dementia. People with dementia and their families had such awful experiences, standards of care seemed to go backwards, and it felt like everything we’d campaigned for over so many years was being lost in a matter of months. “I signed up for the four-day, 50km Sahara trek in 2021 with my friend Claire.
From then until the challenge started in spring 2023, I raised funds towards it: selling on eBay and Vinted, holding bake sales, asking for donations rather than birthday or Christmas presents. I also got a lot of support from my local branch of the Scottish Women’s Institute, who held a coffee morning with me to raise money for the trek. “This was easily my toughest trek. It was mostly between 32° and 40° and I was covered in factor 50, drinking water all the time and draped in loose clothes – I looked like a walking tent! The trek was run by Global Challenge Adventures and they took really good care of us. We did the bulk of our walking in the morning, had a long (shady) lunch then walked a little further in the late afternoon.
“It’s an incredible experience to go completely out of your comfort zone and to share that with a group of strangers. On the first day we had a mini sandstorm! We all wrapped ourselves up as much as we could, but the sand got into everything. It felt like I had sand in my eyes for days. At one point, a man with a train of camels stopped to have tea with us in the middle of the desert. We even saw donkeys wandering freely across the sands. “When it got really hard, I had to remind myself why I was doing this. For my mum and dad, for everyone living with dementia, for Alzheimer Scotland. I couldn’t give up. Challenges like this can be extremely tough. You need to focus on what inspires you; who you are walking for and who you are walking with. “The Sahara trek was an incredible experience; I’d heartily recommend it.”
