Project Belief

Mission Statement

Project Belief is all about giving something back. It’s about having the belief you can do something when all the odds are against you.

This year is about reaching our fundraising goal of £2.5m. We want to send Isabelle to the USA for the treatment she desperately needs and to support her and her family whilst they are there and also once they return to the UK.

We want to reach out to the charities needing our support including Cash For Kids, ABF The soldiers Charity and Walking with the Wounded – no one should be struggling in the 21st century. It’s about helping those who are disadvantaged, disabled or with life limiting conditions. It’s for the veterans who feel forgotten about who struggle with loneliness, addictions and poor mental health.

So much was given to me on my road to recovery, it’s now my turn, along with my team, through the challenges I’ve set myself to give something back.

 

Lance Corporal Mark Harding served with 1st Battalion Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment for 16 years, mostly as a sniper with the Reconnaissance platoon. His service included operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2010, his 16th year of service in the British Army, Mark was deployed on operations to the Nadi-Ali district of Afghanistan. The area was a well-known trouble spot that was notorious for heavy sniper fire. On 28th May 2010, Mark was leading a four-man patrol sent from the platoon base to investigate an Improvised Explosive Device at 41 West Quadrat. Whilst out there, his platoon came under insurgent fire, and he was shot by a Taliban sniper. “I looked down and saw that the left-hand side of my body armour was covered in blood, and then I blacked out.”

 

Upon evacuation to Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, it was discovered that the sniper bullet had passed through his neck, leaving him with severe injuries to the spinal cord and paralysed from the neck down for eight months. He returned to Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham and was placed in an induced coma for six days, and it took another four weeks to stabilise him from the extreme pain that he was in. To assist with his recovery, Mark was then moved to a specialist spinal unit at James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough for seven months and it was at this point that he was told by consultants and doctors that he may never walk again.

 

Mark realised the extent of his injuries and was completely devastated, but was determined to learn to walk again.

 

He and his team are in the planning stages of several fundraising events for 2022 and 2023, raising much needed funds for:

 

1. Six-year-old Isabelle, who has been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of childhood cancer, High Risk Stage Four Neuroblastoma, which has a 50% survival rate. Isabelle needs lifesaving treatment in America. No little girl should go through this. The target is £1,000,000.

Isabelle's family are a part of the King’s Own Royal Border Regiment. Mark wants to help by raising the figure for the family so they have all the resources at hand to help Isabelle to lead a life at home.

 

2.  ABF The Soldiers Charity: £500,000.

 

3. Walking with the Wounded: £500,000.

 

Mark Harding

 

“Walking with the broken speaks louder than running with the great.”