The Great North Run isn’t that far away now and everyone who is running will be getting prepared. To kick off our run up to the Great North Run series we spoke to Lee Ridley aka the Lost Voice Guy who is running for Smile For Life. We spoke to Lee as he received his running bib to talk about taking part in the Great North Run.
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00:00 I'm really looking forward to taking part in my first Great North Run. I watch it every
00:07 year on the television and the atmosphere looks amazing, so I can't wait to experience
00:14 it myself. I think it's something that every Geordie has to do at some point in their life.
00:20 It's such an amazing event for the region and I'm excited to be part of that.
00:26 Obviously, I won't be running myself because I can hardly walk, never mind run. I'm also
00:33 quite lazy. In fact, if laziness was a sport, I'd come in fourth, so I wouldn't need to
00:41 walk up to the podium. So, I'm having some friends push me in my wheelchair instead.
00:47 I'm very grateful to Paul, Lee, Hannah and Ollie for volunteering to push me around the
00:54 course and I promise to lay off the chocolate buddings until after the race.
01:01 Smile for Life is just a brilliant charity and I'm proud to be their patron. They do
01:07 great work with disabled children and young people and they really work hard to empower
01:14 these young people to achieve everything that they can in life. I think that their work
01:20 is very important so that disabled children can realise they can do anything they like
01:27 when they grow up. When I was young, I didn't have many disabled people to look up to and
01:33 admire, so I've got where I am despite all of that. I'm glad things seem to be changing
01:40 a bit now, but there's still a lot of work to be done before we're equals in society.
01:46 Smile for Life is a North East charity and we support children and young people with
01:50 learning difficulties or physical disabilities. We want to do that to empower them to live
01:56 their best life. It could be through providing specialist equipment to make their lives easier
02:01 or happier, perhaps a new experience that they've never had the opportunity to do or
02:05 enjoy. It could be a respite break with their family. We run youth clubs, Tuesdays and Thursdays,
02:12 to try and reduce social isolation for these youngsters. Probably what we're most well
02:17 known for is our cafe Beam, which we have in Gosforth, and now here at Ouseburn Farm.
02:22 The fact that Lee is doing the Great North Run for us is amazing. He'll raise awareness
02:28 of not just the work that we do, but the fact that people with disabilities can achieve
02:35 things like the Great North Run. There's always a way around this, or being pushed
02:39 by a team along the way. It's inspiring to our youngsters to know that boundaries
02:46 can be crossed and nothing should really stop them in achieving their goals with the right
02:51 support in place. I think Lee doing the Great North Run is just going to demonstrate that
02:56 perfectly and raise lots of money to help us continue our work here in the North East
03:01 as well.