10 City Bridge Run
Race against time
Does it really matter if the Millennium Development Goals are not achieved? Of the eight goals set, there are a few that will be achieved (or have already been satisfied) before the 2015 time horizon. Others might not cut it.
Child mortality is one of those measures that is looking doubtful of meeting the 2/3 reduction of 1990 measurement of under-five death before 2015.
It is a race against time, and we as a global community as close to halving the 1990 level. Reduced from around 12 million deaths of under-five children in 1990 to an approximated 6.4 million deaths in 2013.
The stunt which frames the 10 City Bridge Run will illustrate this through running across two distances:
- 2.4 km. A participative run involving a large group running 2.4 km together across a bridge. There are 2.4 million children too many dying this year in 2013 above what is required to achieve the Millennium Development Goal 4 (reduce child mortality by 2/3 from 1990 levels before 2015).
- Half-Marathon. 10 half-marathons will be run in 10 cities across 10 countries as a stunt to show we have halved 1990 levels, and while that is good, it is now a race against time in this marathon journey to end child mortality.
This running is framing the conversation asking: “how can we use our networks to improve the delivery of child survival?”
There are a lot of people who have been working hard on this issue for more years than I have been aware of it. How can we find, learn about, then share best practice to make a difference in the lives of literally millions of people where the need is at its greatest?
This is a race we want to win. Together.
Begin with the End: Focus on Kenya
Begin with the end in mind. Before looking at the running in other locations, we are going to get a tighter plan around Kenya which will be the last country visited as part of the 10 City Bridge Run.
The maturing focus on the 10 City Bridge Run itself is a great advancement from the largely idealised and abstract concept which it began as back in 2010. It is an enormous undertaking, and the timeline and the plan we have going forward is much improved.
The first task is perhaps grounding the 10 City Bridge Run in a particular activity. Thanks for good friends in Kenya and around the world, there has been much discussion about what shape the run in Kenya might take next March. We will begin our initial planning there, and work to address some of the more immediate issues in other cities a little later in June.
Already there has been great input as to what form the run should take. We are looking at an out and back course. It will be open to international participation. And there is still a lot to organise.
Asking good questions before has been helpful. We have been able to identify that covering a marathon distance is not desirable for a number of reasons. Despite the narrative that is built around this, it might be that running a half-marathon distance is preferable to a 24 km distance. We welcome your feedback as to whether you would favour a half-marathon. Whether it is 24 km or half-marathon, all runs across the 10 cities will cover the same (or approximately the same) distance.
There are a still a lot of people we need to speak with to get this done. Please register your interest to support the Kenya Run here as either a runner or as someone who has some specialty knowledge to assist with planning, organising or marshalling this event. If there is someone or some organisation we need to speak to, please pass on their details or make an introduction.
Enter the form here to register your interest. Thanks for working together! Harambee!
Next Steps: Relaunch Party
Attention turns to planning the ReLaunch Party for the 10 City Bridge Run.
It has been a while in the making, and not without a few set-backs and challenges. Celebrating the commencement of this journey at the ReLaunch Party will be all the sweeter thinking about the obstacles overcome to get to this point. It wasn’t possible without your support and encouragement.
The ReLaunch Party is planned to be held in Sydney towards the end of July/early August. Adam Spencer has made himself available to be the emcee for the evening (depending on the date and his other commitments).
Theme, entertainment, speakers, location, time, date and registration details? Will be addressing those soon, and if you would like to get involved by volunteering to help with the ReLaunch Party, please let us know!
Reframe: Improving Child Survival
My last post was a month ago, but in that space of time I have covered a very large distance in many different respects. I wrote as I travelled from Sydney to London to attend the Commonwealth Study Conference, otherwise known as CSCLeaders. That trip proved to be a turn-key moment in gaining a new sense of clarity about this initiative.
It has taken me some time to process everything that has taken place. One month in fact. There is much to share, but here I just wanted to start with one brief comment.
I have reframed the 10 City Bridge Run following the input of many people and much reading over the last month. The emphasis, I believe, needs to be placed on child survival not child mortality.
Let me explain why:
- Child mortality is easy to explain, and is a very tangible and very troubling measure.
- The 10 City Bridge Run is an initiative about how we might use our networks for the better.
- I have come to the realisation that together we cannot actually reduce child mortality. Larger organisations and countries can through their effort, but even then the reduction of child mortality is a lagging indicator of their success in something else.
- Where we can have success is in improving child survival. Through increased child survival, the result is a reduction of child mortality.
This is a subtle shift, but an important one. It means the entire effort goes towards working out what we can do to save lives, rather than spending time recording facts about deaths. Yes, the two go hand-in-glove, but as for directing the efforts of a network, we are better focused on documenting what is best practice in child survival.
Already, there is good data. It is shared widely. But we are still falling short.
This is not about reinventing the wheel, but rather bringing the considerable resources of an extended network of bridge builders to bear on working out where we can best make change to improve child survival.
Just over ago in this blog, I wrote these words:
Changing the name doesn’t change the facts. We are still falling short, and there is more work to be done. But with a renewed focus, maybe at least we can have a clearer view on where our emphasis is best placed.
I didn’t recognise this insight at the time, but now can see that what I had instinctively observed. We are working towards compiling a sharable resource documenting best practice in child survival. This is our journey. Let’s go together!
This video, produced last year, explains this concept well:
Game On! Flying to London
Good news. A very good friend loaned me the additional funding needed to start this journey. Tonight I will fly to London, and the first leg of this will be run closer to Easter.
It is perhaps an opportunistic start, and hasty. But let me ask you: if you have a chance to make a change in the world, but must act now when you are less-than-ready, will you pass it up so you don’t lose face?
It is all part of the conversation we are building asking: “how might we use our networks to reduce child mortality?” It is raw, it is visceral, but it is real.
It is likely I will return home directly to Sydney to conduct the second run in early May. I am still mending from the torn calf muscle in late December, so need to get this journey started, but also do it safely.
More later, but right now I have to zip. Thanks to everyone for getting behind this epic journey.
An Open Letter To Anthony Lake
Anthony Lake is a man I admire and respect greatly. We all should. He has earned it, and continues to demonstrate exceptional leadership and influence in his public role as Executive Director of UNICEF, as a further contribution he has made to a wide range of peace building initiatives since the early 1960s.
In September last year in New York during the ‘Social Good Summit’, Anthony Lake rightly described child mortality as both a moral obscenity and moral abomination. These are strong words, but justified. Today alone, 17,000 children will die across the world, mostly from one of five easily preventable causes. More must be done.
What follows is an open letter to Anthony Lake. I post it here only because I need him to act on it in the next 24 hours. Six degrees of separation holds us apart. Together, can we bridge this gap and get this letter in front of people who have the capacity and the will to influence this outcome in the interests of us all? I have no guarantee that he will read it, or act on it. Others can help. If it is within your capacity to influence the outcome I seek, would you please take action to help? This letter, while addressed to Anthony Lake is an open letter to us all.
You can help by sharing this post. Few of us can send it directly to Anthony Lake, but if we can activate the network, then we might have a chance. Help us to show that networks are our possibility factories. Help us to show that the seemingly impossible is possible, if we put our minds and hearts behind the cause.
Please forward this open letter in any way you can: share this post on Facebook, RT on Twitter, send through email, deliver in person, blog on social media. A hard copy of this letter has been printed out in New York by friends who will do their best to try to deliver it in person as well. Please help this letter get to the right person who can help make a difference. We have a short time, but an incredibly connected network capable of more than we might appreciate.
This is perhaps the first step we are taking together in opening this conversation asking: “how can we use our networks to reduce child mortality?”
Thank you for starting this journey with me.
Let’s recall that African proverb:
“If you want to go fast, travel alone; If you want to travel far, then let’s go together.”
AN OPEN LETTER TO DR ANTHONY LAKE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNICEF
Dr Anthony Lake
Executive Director
UNICEF
UNICEF House
3 United Nations Plaza
New York, New York 10017
United States
Dear Tony,
I am very excited to have been recently selected to attend the ‘Commonwealth Study Conference‘ which commences in London this weekend.
This forum provides extraordinary access, engagement and development potential. It includes a reception at Downing Street, and dinner with HRH The Princess Royal (Princess Anne). The focus is on fellow participants, described as being 100 of the brightest, best and most senior leaders drawn from governments, businesses and NGOs across the 54 countries of the Commonwealth. The real benefit for myself in attending the Commonwealth Study Conference is in the creation of an enabling environment for the 10 City Bridge Run such that it has the capacity for real impact in helping to reduce child mortality.
The 10 City Bridge Run is an initiative I created in 2010 that will involve me running 10 sub-marathons, each of 24 km in 10 cities across 10 countries. The running is a stunt is to open a conversation asking: “how can we use our networks to reduce child mortality?” I have uploaded a short video describing the 10 City Bridge Run at www.pozible.com/lifebridge.
I agree with your assertion that child mortality is indeed a moral abomination of our time. We must embrace new and innovative approaches. When combatting moral abomination, can we really afford to allow small efforts to fail when the cost is relatively negligible? We must be relentless in this fight:
“For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, and for want of a horse the man was lost.”
The 10 City Bridge Run is grounded in an idea that it is through the triumph of imagination that we are able to achieve new possibilities. Bill Shore in his 2010 book: “The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men” describes a “narrow but vitally important space between the impractical and the impossible” which he calls the “imagination gap”. He writes:
“The imagination gap is a place where hope lies waiting to be discovered, and cannot be extinguished once it has. Most failures in life are not failures of resources, or organisation, or strategy or discipline. They are failures of imagination.”
The 10 City Bridge Run draws inspiration from a quote by Ophelia Dahl (cofounder of Partners in Health and daughter of renowned children’s book author Roald Dahl) taken from a graduation speech when she quoted Adam Hochschild who earlier wrote about the importance of “drawing connections between the near and the distant”:
“Linking our own lives and fates with those we can’t see will, I believe, be the key to a decent and shared future… Imagination will allow you to make the link between the near of your lives and the distant others and will lead us to realise the plethora of connections between us and the rest of the world…and this will surely lead to ways in which you can influence others and perhaps improve the world along the way.”
I have yet to commence the 10 City Bridge Run journey because of issues related mostly to funding and injury, but remain undeterred as I recognise the importance of this initiative. The Commonwealth Study Conference opens an ideal window to finally begin this journey. My intention is to commence running in London at the end of March, and finish in New York coinciding with the United Nations General Assembly at the end of September, with the journey being divided into three separate legs.
I have been accepted to the Commonwealth Study Conference on a part-bursary basis which means that I am responsible for contributing £1,000 to the programme, along with paying for international airfares (UK in March, India in June). All other costs (food, transport and accommodation) are met by the programme organiser, along with the remainder of the cost of the forum itself (£10,000)
To date, I have raised money to undertake the 10 City Bridge Run through the pre-sale of a book containing 100 photographs of ‘human bridges’ called Life Bridge. This crowdfunded approach has sought to encourage a broad base of participation with books being sold for $24 (soft-cover) or $240 (hard-cover). While I have raise sufficient money to start the journey, I have yet to secure enough funding to see the journey through to its completion, and am asking for your help.
I have a deadline by Thursday to raise a small amount of money to enable me to commence this journey, enhanced through attendance at the Commonwealth Study Conference to amplify the conversation.
I now face an immediate challenge where I have an unique opportunity, but lack the necessary funding to act. Given the urgency child mortality presents as a moral abomination, to delay the 10 City Bridge Run would be a lost opportunity to increase our collective capacity for action, influence and impact through a conversation asking how can we use our networks to reduce child mortality.
I invite you to join this journey through your support of the 10 City Bridge Run. Would you please visit www.pozible.com/lifebridge where you could pre-purchase a copy of the book Life Bridge for either $24 or $240 that will enable this journey? Alternatively, because of the time constraint, a deposit could be made directly to my account with a follow up email to ensure transparency for funds received (Matthew Jones, BSB 062220 , Account Number 10127834).
This is an enormous task, and I cannot do it alone. Please help to make this journey possible so that we might together work to reduce child mortality through the use of our networks. Thank you for your consideration and your support.
Yours sincerely,
Matthew Jones
Matthew Jones
Sydney, Australia
12 March 2013
There is a catch…
The journey begins at the end of March. It is ambitious, it is bold, it is workable.
But there is a catch. I need to pre-sell 30 hardcover copies of the book Life Bridge to ensure that I am not exposed to financial risk when I undertake this journey. I am contacting a broad network to seek their support, and anticipate receiving the requisite support before 11 March.
Please share this with someone you might know who could want to join the journey and support the project. Please see the YouTube clip describing the project, and visit the page where people can support this initiative at www.pozible.com/lifebridge.
They said it couldn’t be done. How often were they wrong?
Runners Wall
Training for the 10 City Bridge Run begins on 4 December 2012. You can see the full program at the Training Schedule. and that is also the beginning of part of the conversation. Participation leads to conversation. Please join us!
You can join in by running, walking or skateboard any leg of the training for the particular date it is scheduled. You don’t need to coordinate that with us first, and you don’t need to be in the same location. You could even be in a different country. Afterwards, let us know you joined us on the journey by taking part in the run. Send us your photo (Facebook avatar will do) which will be posted onto the ‘Runners Wall‘.
There will be three levels for participation:
- Level 1 ‘athlete’: where you join us on at least one day of training from the training schedule.
- Level 2 ‘marathon’: where you join us on at least three days of training from the training schedule.
- Level 3 ‘olympian’: where you join us on at least 10 days of training from the schedule.
The training goes over 12 weeks, and then there is one month of running the 10 City Bridge Run, so plenty of time to get your game on!
We will start with just two photos: me and my mate John from Kenya. Then another might join, and then another. How long before 10? How long before 100 people have taken part? Can we exceed over 1,000 people? How will participation shape conversation, I wonder?
This idea is still being unpacked, so if you have any questions or better suggestions please let us know. If you know a better way to display the ‘Runners Wall’, please let us know too.
New Beginnings
The good news first. We are building many strong relationships with important conversation partners that will give this initiative teeth. What is core to the outcome of the 10 City Bridge Run is a robust conversation. It is the conversation that mobilises the network.
I have realised the start date will need to be pushed back to enable the conversation to develop to its potential to achieve the best outcome. Earlier I had planned several different start dates, going all the way back to 2010. The last iteration was for 12 December 2012. However, I have come to realise that to commence now would be premature, given the scale of what is sought to be achieved.
Consequently, I have made the decision to delay the commencement of the 10 City Bridge Run until 24 February 2013.
This was a difficult decision to make, and harder still to communicate to people like yourself. Let me first say thank you for taking time to read this post.
Every time the start date slips, I feel that the credibility of this initiative is tarnished in some way. In fact, the opposite is true in this case. Starting now would be irresponsible if making impact was key. Running over Christmas might have been good to ‘just do it’, but the reality is that everyone is face-down in Christmas pudding. Better to hold off until a better conversation is possible.
If you have Supported this initiative already, you will have seen the design behind this initiative in the Supporters Passport I sent you. The Supporters Passport, just like this blog, is of itself part of this unfolding conversation. Clearly, the dates in that passport will accordingly need to be amended.
I do seek your further help through any feedback you might want to offer on what is contained inside the outline in the Supporters Passport: what was good for you? what needed more explanation? what could be improved? and were there ideas that were not included?
I also welcome you taking a more active role in this initiative either by joining our team of volunteers, or by being available to offer feedback to the meaty part of the conversation as it begins to unfold: what should the Design Forum focus on? who should we be speaking with? what issues need to be addressed? We could do with your help no matter your experience, where you live, or how limited your time might be.
Here are two dates to note:
- 12 December 2012: the first of a number of planning meet-ups.
- 31 January 2013: Launch event. Looking for good suggestions about where, how and with whom this might be best organised.
If you did not receive your Supporters Passport, please email me with your correct address and I will ensure a new one is posted out immediately. If you are already a Supporter, there is no cost to you, and it is something I want you to have as a way of thanking you for your support.
People can still join and support this initiative through downloading a Supporters Form here Supporters Payment Form 10 City Bridge Run 291112.
This is a big undertaking, and it is taking shape. I hope you share my anticipation of what is possible from the journey ahead.
Design Forum. 10 Cities. Free to Attend.
The concept to this 10 City Bridge Run is really starting to take shape, and I have some exciting news to share.
The good news is that what started as a concept over coffee with friends a little over two years ago is now about to go global, and all thanks to you.
Many of you have supported me by sponsoring the journey. The sponsorship has been pre-ordering a book called ‘Life Bridge’ that will feature 100 photos of human bridges. That is on track too, although I expect the book won’t be published until late February 2013. In the meantime, we have an intense journey ahead. You can just watch from the sidelines- that is fine too.
For those people who did support me, a big thank you once again. It is you who has made this possible. And there have been many other people out there who are helping me in other ways. People like Kelley, Jillian and Zipporah- you are not forgotten either. For all my supporters, a quick message. Every journey needs a passport, and this is no different. So this week I should be posting you your own 16 page passport which outlines what is happening on this journey. First I will be emailing to confirm your address, and then posting the letter.
This post is to briefly mention 10 Design Forum that will be convened in each city I visit. You can join in, and if fact it is free to attend. I still need some help to coordinate this, but I know that together that too is possible. Please visit the Eventbrite link here http://designforum.eventbrite.com.au to register. You can register for more than one city, and you can register friends as well. You can see the themes of the link as well.
This won’t be the last time I mention the Design Forum, and I also want to make sure I am not overloading the interwebs with too many posts. If you are not getting enough information, or if I didn’t make something clear enough, please let me know too.
Thanks for joining me on this journey. Let’s get to work!
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