Rosie Runs for Kitezh
Make a donation for Kitezh to celebrate Rosie’s Homecoming 
Buy Rosie's Book: Just a Little Run
Around the World
ROSIE is back in the UK!
Final destination: Tenby, Wales 25th August 2008
We were thrilled to welcome Rosie home to Scottish
soil in the early morning of 18th June 2008.
We are so grateful to her for her support for the orphans at Kitezh
Community in Russia. They remember her well, and are astonished
that she is still running. Five years is a very long time in a
child's life! Any support for Kitezh through Ecologia Youth Trust
will be most welcome, as a gesture of support for Rosie's heroic
effort.
© photo Adriana Sjan Bijman
Rosie Swale-Pope celebrated her 57th birthday on
2nd October 2003 by starting a round the world solo run. She chose
Kitezh Community for Orphan Children in Russia as one of her sponsored
charities and Ecologia Youth Trust is honoured to support her
on her extraordinary challenge.
At the start of her run, Rosie guessed that the 20,000-mile journey
would take her two to three years. In 2008, almost FIVE years
after the start, Rosie is on the Home Run!
Rosie came to running late in life, when she was 48, and she fell
in love with it. Since then she has run countless marathons including
a 240 kilometre run in the Sahara carrying all her own equipment
in temperatures of 125°F. She has run across Romania, Kosovo,
Iceland and Nepal and then she took on the world. At the start
Rosie said: "My dearest wish is to do a complete circle of
the earth, planned to keep me on as much land mass as possible.
This is also the coldest, hardest, most fascinating way, and includes
almost 7,000 miles of Russia and Siberia. I shall run across Europe
through Holland, Germany, Poland to Moscow before hitting the
Trans–Siberian Railway route. Then I shall cross Siberia
running north to the Bering Straits, cross to Alaska, then run
across Canada into the US, then Greenland, Iceland, Scotland and
England to return to the start and finishing line at Tenby, my
home in Wales.
"When I took up running, sometimes
the snails were faster. Yet it took me on paths I would never
otherwise have trodden. Because you can get sponsored, it became
my privilege to help others. I run for love and joy; and I run
for courage."
When she was young (and an orphan) her grandmother
taught her that she could do anything she set her mind to. This
belief in the possible led her, with her husband and daughter,
to sail across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, across
the Pacific to Australia. Her second child was born in harbour
at Flumicino or somewhere close by at the mouth of the Tiber near
Rome. As a result of this experience, Reeds Nautical Almanac,
alas now defunct, used to have one page devoted to emergency childbirth.
They sailed from England in January with the infant Eve, and Rosie
heavily pregnant. She had to have a specially tailored "dry-suit"
made for her to keep warm in the Bay of Biscay.
She turned a trans–Atlantic solo voyage into an opportunity
to raise money for hospital equipment. There was also an extraordinary
3,000-mile trek down the coast of Chile which took her 14 months.
 In
2003 she embarked on her biggest challenge yet: to Run rround
the World. It has been a huge undertaking and required meticulous
planning. As part of her preparation Rosie ran a marathon in Omsk
in aid of a hospital there, to gain knowledge of the region, make
friends and investigate how best to go about the most difficult
part of the journey—crossing the vast, empty and harsh land
of Northeast Siberia. People she met in Omsk were very supportive
and thought it quite possible. Ecologia Youth Trust took on the
challenge of supporting Rosie to cross the whole of Russia.
Her route took her across Europe via Moscow to Kitezh Children’s
Community for orphans where she saw for herself the place that
her effort helps to support.
She met the children at Kitezh, fell in love with them and ‘adopted’
two god-children, Nellie and Marina. Then, fired with energy and
enthusiasm, she took off for Siberia. Her adventures make an extraordinary
tale. Her encounters with a bus, a bear, freezing temperatures
and wonderfully kind people are told on her website rosiearoundtheworld.co.uk.
For most of us, what she was planning to do seemed impossible
but the things she had already done were quite impossible too
and she did them. She has boundless energy and a great love for
this amazing world and its many and varied people. If anyone could
do it, she could. She feels this run is the most important thing
she has ever done for many reasons not least of which is that
it is in memory of her husband, Clive. "When Clive died from
prostate cancer last year, I felt such sorrow I have never known
before. Like falling in love, the death of someone you love changes
you forever. I was determined not to give up, but to try to do
more. His death taught me more than anything about how precious
life is. How short it can be, that you have to grab life, do what
you can while you can, and try and give something back.
Ecologia Youth Trust is honoured to help Rosie Swale Pope
realise her dream to run around the world and to raise money for
orphan children in Russia through sponsorship.
Russia was a tough but rewarding first leg of her journey. We
tracked her progress along her way through Russia and gave her
all the contacts we could muster. Her second winter was spent
in Siberia. The third winter took her across the winter wastelands
of Alaska. The fourth winter she ran across Canada into the USA
via Chicago, New York and Boston towards Nova Scotia. The fifth
and LAST winter she will cross the sea to Greenland, Iceland and
FINALLY arrive on 1st April in Scotland and run home to Wales
for her grand Homecoming celebration on 1st June 2008.
For further details on how you can support Rosie's Run please
contact Ecologia Youth Trust
top
|
