Thanks to SLIP Committee Members, Geraldine Horgan, Joe Manning and Sean Farren for participating in this fund raising event.
From the 11th to 20th October, 2021 we challenged staff and volunteers from the Irish Credit Union movement to join together to ‘virtually’ walk/ run from the League’s office on Mount Street, Dublin to the Foundation’s field office on Fort Street, Sierra Leone.
This was our first-ever fundraising event, a joint initiative with the League, to raise awareness and funds for the continued development of the credit union movement in Sierra Leone. We were delighted with the response and thank you to everyone who got involved – 463 people registered for the Challenge and we had 53 teams participating from credit unions and the League. It was great to see credit union staff and volunteers from across the island of Ireland get out and get their steps up over the 10 days, and people really did Step Up to the Challenge.
The goal of the event was to walk 10 million steps – this was achieved within five days – a testament of how credit unions always go above and beyond. In total we walked over 36 million steps, which equates to over 27,000km. We walked enough steps to go to Fort Street in Sierra Leone, back to Mount Street in Dublin and then back to Sierra Leone again! Next year we’ll have to set a bigger challenge.
Thank you to everyone who also fundraised, between registration fees and donations we have raised over €28,000 so far – donations will close on 11th November: https://bit.ly/stepupcuchallengedonate. This money will support our continued efforts to support the development of the credit union movement in Sierra Leone including training staff and volunteers to provide much-needed access to affordable and ethical savings and loans and empower members to be financially included.A huge thank you to you for getting involved, whether you walked 100 steps or 1 million steps, we were delighted that you stepped up for Sierra Leone! Thank You,