I'm fundraising for...
In April next year, I'm walking 117km along the Camino de Santiago in Spain with a group of girlfriends to raise funds and awareness for Childhood Dementia Initiative, a cause close to all our hearts.
It'll be a great adventure with many laughs, beautiful scenery, good food, sangria. We are fit and healthy, but I'm sure there will be a few tears too from aching joints, sore feet, the inevitable signs of getting older.
And there it is. We are getting older.
Children with childhood dementia devastatingly won't.
My lovely friend Meg is CEO of Childhood Dementia Initiative. Her two beautiful children, Isla and Jude, were both born with Sanfilippo syndrome — one of more than 100 genetic conditions that cause childhood dementia. Before I met Meg, I'd never heard of it. I'd always associated dementia with old age.
But childhood dementia is very real.
1 in 2,900 children are born with it.
Half die by age 10. Most, 71%, don't reach 18 years of age.
It has a similar death rate to childhood cancer yet receives around 20 times less funding. Less funding means fewer treatments and less hope for children losing skills they have already learned such as talking, reading, walking, playing - if the disease even lets them develop those skills at all.
For those overseas: Childhood Dementia Initiative is driving a coordinated global response, pushing childhood dementia onto the world health policy agenda where it belongs.
So April 2027 isn't just a group of friends on an adventure. Every kilometre we walk raises awareness and funding for children like Isla and Jude, everywhere.
I'd love your support and would be so grateful for a donation. If that's not possible right now, please share this post and tell three friends today - help us spread the word about a disease too few people know exists.
Or - come walk with us. The more the merrier!
Thank you for your support.
Sara xx
