DEBRA UK Challenge 2024

“Double the distance plus more, will you join Team DEBRA and BE the difference for EB?”

Last June, football legend and DEBRA UK Vice President Graeme Souness CBE, alongside the swim team, took on the DEBRA UK swim challenge and swam the 30-mile stretch of water that lies between Dover and Calais. Their motivation was Isla Grist, 16, who lives with recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa. Graeme and the swim team made it to the shores of France and completed the English Channel swim in a speedy 12 hours 17 minutes! That wasn’t enough for Graeme though, and in his words, “we must do more”. So, this September, Team DEBRA are taking on an even bigger challenge to 'BE the difference for EB.'

Graeme explains more:

“There is still so much more that we need to do for people living with the excruciating pain of EB, which is why we’re getting the team back together.

As a team, we’re going to push ourselves even further this time and swim twice as far, swimming the English Channel there and back, and then cycling 85 miles from Dover to London!

It’s going to be tough for sure. I’m not sure whether I can physically do the swim as I still haven’t recovered from my shoulder surgery earlier in the year, but I’ll give it my best shot. If I can’t swim, I’ll ride, I’ll do whatever I can to BE the difference for EB. Along the way, I’ll be thinking of my good friend Isla and the thousands of other children and adults who are living with the pain of EB right now.

We’ll be taking on this challenge to support DEBRA UK’s 2024 ‘BE the difference for EB’ appeal. With your support, DEBRA UK can continue to invest in drug repurposing clinical trials. Clinical trials are so important to ensure that in the future there is an effective drug treatment for every type of EB. Your support will also enable DEBRA UK to provide an enhanced programme of EB community support. This is vital to improve quality of life for people like Isla, living with EB today.

Please join me in supporting DEBRA UK's 'BE the difference for EB' appeal by sponsoring Team DEBRA today. Or how about taking on an extraordinary challenge of your own? Set up a fundraising page through Give as you Live. You could do your own sponsored swimathon with a length of the pool for every mile we’ll be taking on in the English Channel, or is there anything else that’s a little different or ‘out there’ to support people living with EB?

Together, we can BE the difference for EB. Thank you.”