Mozambique Swim Challenge

Hello! I’m Laila, I’m 14, and this year, I swam 419 kilometres (and convinced my parents and little sister to join me!) to raise awareness and hopefully some funding to help save our oceans. 419 kilometres is the width of the Mozambique Channel: a marine ecosystem that faces lots of threats, from oil and gas prospecting to ocean pollution.

 

I swam my last kilometre yesterday and would like to invite my friends and family and anyone who cares about ocean environments to sponsor my swim - either with a small amount per kilometre, or just a small amount - whatever you can manage!

 

Any sponsorship money that we are able to raise will go to the Flipflopi - a charity that is working to prevent plastic pollution in the world’s oceans. They are doing this by turning trash that has been collected on East Africa’s beaches into a big ocean-going dhow, working to improve local recycling and waste management along the way. In doing so they don’t just raise awareness and education around these issues but also make a real difference to the way local recycling organisations are able to keep plastic out of the environment, improving livelihoods. At the moment, we humans produce around 300 million tonnes of plastic waste every year - the equivalent to the weight of the human population (UNEP), and much of it ends up in the world’s waterways, poisoning our water and food. Coastal communities are particularly affected. So I hope that my big journey can help make a small difference.