Most Squats in 24hrs Guinness World Record Attempt

My Name is Idai Makaya. On 17th-18th March 2024, to celebrate my 50th birthday, I aimed to break the world record for Most Squats In 24 Hours (which stood at 25,000 reps) and to raise £7,000 for a clean water supply at an orphanage in Zimbabwe. I was successful with both aims, achieving £7,060 & 27,000 squats.

The world record attempt took place at Bodystreet Milton Keynes Train Station and was dedicated to my late brother Garai Makaya, who died on 11th February 2017, in a skydiving accident.

After Garai's passing, I pledged to continue his fundraising work in Southern Africa through a series of extreme ultra-endurance world record events, which I started in 2018 (you can read about my previous world records here). 

My 24 hour squats Guinness world record was specifically aimed at achieving a fundraising goal of $9,000 (£7,000) to install a borehole and provide a sustainable, free, clean water supply at an orphanage called Hupenyu Hutsva (HH) in Harare, Zimbabwe.

The availability of an unlimited clean water supply will have an immediate impact on the lives of the 106 children (58 girls & 48 boys) living at the orphanage, in terms of improved sanitation and hygiene (including a reduced risk of contracting cholera and other diseases which are currently causing a health crisis in the area where the orphanage is situated).

The borehole will also enable the orphanage to start growing its own vegetables, which will improve the childrens' dietary intake and enhance the longterm sustainability of the orphanage by generating revenue through the commercial sale of vegetables to the surrounding communities. 

I strongly believe this fundraising event can launch a sustainable longterm change in an organisation doing great work for children in desperate circumstances (children with nobody to look out for them, other than volunteers and kind-hearted strangers, like you and me).

THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THIS FUNDRAISING PROJECT

On the 11th February 2017, my brother Garai Makaya passed away in a skydiving accident in South Africa. Garai had been a pioneer and innovator in the skydiving & adventure tourism sector in Botswana, touching many lives by making what many considered to be an extreme sport more accessible and more relevant to everyday people.

Garai used his skydiving passion to build charitable tourism events around Botswana and was a remarkably unique individual who brought warmth & inspiration into the lives of everyone who knew him. He established skydiving as an official sport in Botswana (recognised by the Botswana Sports Council & supported by the Botswana Ministry of Tourism) and was committed to building an enduring skydiving & adventure tourism movement in Botswana.

As depicted in the photo below (with His Excellency President Ian Khama, the President of Botswana at the time) Garai was able to reach and engage with people of all ages, backgrounds & careers - and he was able to get them to take an active interest in the things he was passionate about (which mainly covered supporting charities, skydiving, movies, coffee, craft beer & burgers)!

In his memory, I have undertaken to raise £80,000 for charitable projects in Southern Africa and have committed myself to a series of ultra-endurance fitness challenges designed to raise awareness and help drive this venture. I am also writing a book about my endurance challenges, the proceeds of which will contribute towards my fundraising goals.

Additionally, I've pledged to make a documentary film about Garai to show how he inspired me - and many other people - to take on and achieve goals which we never believed could be possible. All the proceeds of the documentary film will contribute towards my overall £80,000 fundraising goal.

To date, I have raised over £18,000 of the £80,000 target through my various world record challenge events and I aim to continue working on this project until my full fundraising target has been attained. However, for my 50th birthday celebration, I was keen to specifically address the urgent needs of the Hupenyu Hutsva Orphanage, so the Squats World Record attempt fundraising was aimed only at this charity.

During his lifetime Garai never gave up on any of his important goals and in that same spirit I will work on my fundraising goals: £1 at a time. As Garai's brother, I feel compelled to use whatever skills and connections I have to contribute towards the realisation of this goal, which is why I have dedicated the biggest and toughest fitness challenges of my entire life towards the fundraising effort required to make this vision a reality.

I will continue to fight on until I have achieved all my goals and seen this project through to fruition. Until then, you can continue to follow my progress on this fundraising page and on my personal blog. Those of you who never got to meet Garai in person, but would like to know a little more about him, can read an article about the last 10 years of his life as a skydiver, here .

And you can find more details of my fundraising events on my previous GoFundMe page.

Although I hit the target for squats on my 50th birthday, I think we all agree that installing a borehole at the orphanage was a more important outcome than beating the squats world record. So successfully reaching the £7,000 fundraising goal has been the best birthday present I've had in my 50 years on this planet!

Thank you for reading this message and thanks to all of you who have believed in me (and believed in Garai's story) by choosing to support this project. We could not have come this far without you.