Refugee Action York (RAY) was founded in 2002 to challenge myths and misconceptions about refugees and asylum seekers and to raise awareness of the contribution refugees and asylum seekers make to our society. RAY works specifically with and for asylum seekers, refugees and migrants in and around the City of York.

Accomplish Children’s Trust is a UK-based charitable trust raising funds to support children and young adults with disabilities in Africa. Accomplish aims to bring relief to children who have physical or learning disabilities, and their families. We provide support to local (African) organisations through grants and our initiative-support network. Earlier this year, Chris traveled to Uganda to see the valuable work of Accomplish and its partner organisations first-hand.

He writes: “I started by visiting Kagando hospital and began to learn about illness and disease in this part of Africa. This was a very useful backdrop to visiting RAPCD which provides education and training for children with disabilities, and SADICH which is a special purpose facility to support the vocational training of children and their families who suffer with disabilities.

These charities are remarkable for so many reasons. They are happy, well-led and effective organisations which are giving disabled children a chance to learn, earn money, and have a normal life. The kids have all come from desperately poor homes, and without the opportunities that these projects offer, their lives would not be filled with such hope and possibility.”

Martin House Children’s Hospice is an amazing charity which cares for children and young people with progressive life-limiting illnesses and provides support to their families.

Acid Survivors Trust International (ASTI) is the only organisation whose sole purpose is to work towards the end of acid violence across the world.

Compassion works through local churches in poor communities around the world to release children from poverty. Compassion’s holistic child development programmes focus on the spiritual, economic, social and physical needs of children through all stages of development.

Ryedale Special Families is an independent charity founded in the early 1990s by a group of parents of disabled children. Their objective is ‘The relief of children and young adults with disabilities and special needs, their families and/or carers, in particular, but not exclusively, by the provision of information, advice and support service’.

Medicines Sans Frontier/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is an independent humanitarian medical aid organisation, providing medical aid where it is most needed, regardless of race, religion, politics or gender.

The Peasholme Charity York is a charitable company which since its founding in 1988 has provided crisis and resettlement services with the aim of helping homeless single people access and maintain accommodation which is appropriate to their individual needs.

York Women’s Counselling Service: This service is a lifeline for women coping with a variety of issues including domestic violence, depression and rape. The charity has 12 trained counsellors who volunteer their time for free, last year running 758 counselling sessions, with many women being referred by GPs.

Macmillan Cancer Support: We sponsored Chris who successfully ran the Polar Circle Marathon in October 2012 as well as a training run of the Berlin Marathon three weeks before this. As you can imagine, the polar marathon is unusual as it includes running on the 3 km thick Greenlandic ice cap and on glacier tongues in temperatures of around –5 degrees C.

Baby bereavement suite at Yeovil hospital: We sponsored Christine, a midwife at Yeovil hospital who successfully completed a Tough Mudder event in support of a new baby bereavement suite at Yeovil Hospital.

“The reason that I’m trying to raise money for this cause is that up until a year ago, we had a dedicated quiet suite set apart on our Labour Ward for grieving mothers and their families, whose babies were born sleeping. There is ongoing work in the Maternity Unit to improve the environment for our women, but as it stands, women are currently having to mourn their angels within a room where the cries of other labouring mothers and newborn babies are audible.“

The Aware Foundation was recommended to us by a client and it does some amazing work. The mission of the foundation is to give disadvantaged and vulnerable children the right to an education. It works without geographical constraints and reaches out to children in deprived communities throughout India. The Foundation successfully uses education as a tool to improve the lives of underprivileged children. It aims is to overcome social, economic and political barriers that deny young people the right to learn.