Walk the Walk celebrate raising £100m fundraising since the charity launched nearly 20 years ago!

WOW who would have thought it, from the small beginning of just 13 people in 1996 Power Walking the New York city marathon and raising £25,000 that it would grow into a multi million pound charity… well to be exact a £100 million charity! Yes just to repeat that… £100 million… what a fantastic milestone to reach!

Just imagine, if this is what success looks like after 19 years, imagine what it could look like in the next 10 years… my dearest wish is that breast cancer is a treatable disease, and that many many more of the women that get secondary cancers go onto survive for many years… with your help we can do it, so keep on Walking the Walk and Talking the Talk together we can move mountains!

Our challengers just haven’t stopped Walking, but meanwhile we have been granting our precious funds to other charities and organisations so that they can carry out ground breaking research, or fund much needed special care for those that have breast cancer now. You haven’t stopped, and neither have we, so from me personally and all of the Walk the Walk Team, we send you a HUGE THANK YOU… we could not have achieved any of our wonderful work without your support!

But…there is still more to be done… especially after seeing the shocking results of our nationwide survey* into breast cancer!

• Over 80% of women in the UK worry about getting breast cancer yet less than 20% check themselves once a week.
• Even more shocking half of women aged 18-24 admit to not knowing what they’re looking for, according to our nationwide survey.
• Statistics reveal that four out of every ten (42%) of women in this age bracket (18-24) admit that, if they found a lump, they’d wait a while rather than go to the doctor immediately.
• Almost 10% said they were more scared of losing their hair than dying.

“These are really worrying findings,” said Walk the Walk Founder Nina Barough CBE, who is no stranger to the disease having fought her own battle with breast cancer in 1996.

“Women of any age, and especially young women, need to check themselves at least once a month and see a doctor immediately if something is not quite right. It’s very easy to do and only takes a couple of minutes. If you’re unsure what to do, go to our website where you’ll find all the information It’s crucial to get an early diagnosis as it really can save lives. Our mantra to women across the UK is: check, check and check again. Our website also suggests lots of ways to get involved with MoonWalks and SunWalks and to continue the fight against this dreadful disease.”

The survey revealed:

• 11% of all respondents don’t bother to check for lumps and changes. If they did detect a lump the majority (71%) would go to their doctor whereas a quarter of women (26%) said they would wait a while and sadly a handful would never go.
• Almost a third of those asked (31%) didn’t know what they’re looking for when checking for lumps or changes in their breasts.
• 42% of women aged 25-34 don’t know how to check for lumps.
• Women living in Yorkshire and Humberside are most worried about getting breast cancer (20%) compared to those in East Anglia (12%).
• Women in East Anglia lead the list of those who never check their breasts with just under 16% admitting to doing nothing.
• The North West is a close second (15.29%) with Scotland, the South East, London, the South West and Yorkshire all with double figure deniers.
• A staggering 31.7% (three women in every ten) living in London and at least 20% in other regions would wait a while before going to the doctors if they found a lump, with 5% saying they wouldn’t get it checked out at all.

Nina continues:
“Over 350,000 women and men have completed MoonWalking and SunWalking challenges over the last 19 years, power walking nearly 8 million miles – enough to walk to the moon 32 times! I’m incredibly proud of their achievements but clearly we need to continue to raise awareness of this devastating disease.”

*The survey of 2000 women throughout the UK was carried out by OnePoll between 25.3.15-15.4.15

Thank you for uniting with us against breast cancer and helping us make a difference!