Mike Harley
Mike Harley is running a marathon (Mike's EU Marathons) in each of the 28 EU member countries to raise money for Invest in ME. He is bringing funds and awareness to ME.
Mike states his motivation for his unique fundraising effort: "Over 250,000 people in the UK suffer with the ME and that includes 25,000 children as well as one of my good friends who has suffered for almost 9 years with the illness. Watching him drift from year to year without improvement is extremely hard to watch, I want to try to do something to stop this. He's not depressed or making it up, he's one of the most popular and positive people I know. He's ill."
Mike works in partnership with Invest In ME and the European ME Alliance to raise awareness for patients in each EU country that he visits. He has so far met patient groups, press (including BBC Radio) and patients in Czech Rep, Sweden, Greece, Finland, Ireland, Belgium, Spain and Netherlands. Where there are no recognised ME charities or groups he is trying to help bring together patients and encourage them to start their own advocacy and support communities including Poland's first ME support group [1]
Mike is aiming to finish his challenge in 2020 although is keen to finish the challenge quicker should he be able to find corporate sponsors to cover the costs of travel/accommodation to each race. He hopes to raise £26.2K and as of Nov 2017 has brought in £9500 for biomedical research projects.
In 2018 he will be running in Malta (Feb), Austria (Apr), Denmark (May), Germany (Sept) and Croatia (Oct).[1]
