About Run4Humanity
About Run4Humanity
Over 2 billion people in the world live in areas with little or no access to clean and safe drinking water and the World Health Organisation estimates that over 800,000 die every year from diarrhoea caused by water-borne diseases.
Run4Humanity aims to change this – through the medium of ultra distance running.our unique 5 step program to bring clean safe water and long-term impact to remote African communities.
Veronique will run thousands of kilometres through remote communities devastated by lack of clean water. She’ll be supported by a team who will bring water filters, education on how and why to use them, and the means to a healthier future.
Run4Humanity’s vision is to give three million of the world’s neediest peopleprovide some of the world’s most impoverished communities with access to clean water.
Clean water transforms entire communities and changes lives.
We aim to eliminate the deaths caused by water-borne disease; to enable children to go to school instead of having to walk for miles to collect water; and to empower women to play a part in the economics of their communities.
We use the sport of ultra-running to connect with the communities we impact. Our founder, Veronique Bourbeau, is an elite ultra-runner who runs hundreds of kilometres to visit every community in each project, to celebrate clean water, and to raise awareness and funding for future projects.
The Run4Humanity 5 step water transformation program
1. Water installation – our local partner will install water delivery technology in remote communities.
2. Ultra-Run – our founder, Veronique Bourbeau, is an elite ultra-runner. She will raise awareness of the project by running thousands of kilometres to visit every community. At each village she will lead a celebration of clean water, and launch the key next steps of the program.
3. WASH program – through a local partner, we will deliver a water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) education program to increase understanding of the importance of clean water. The program is based on the research of Dr Katrina Charles of Oxford University.
4. Change through Arts – getting the full benefits of clean water requires behavioural change. Through a local partner, our program harnesses the communicative power of the arts as the way to drive new attitudes and behaviours. The program is based on the work of Viva Con Agua.
5. Economic resilience – Run4Humanity’s projects will deliver long-term benefits – through health, education, women working and by investing in local human capital and creativity with our local partners. We will measure and report on the ongoing impact to ensure we promote economic sustainability and help communities escape the poverty trap.
Run4Humanity Governance Model
We’re a high impact not for profit organisation, but we drive the organisation in the same way as a for profit business. We have a CEO and a board, and a clearly defined strategy and goals.
We are not solely a fundraising program – we are program developers and project managers, bringing together experts who have the skills and resources to make change happen. We use the world’s best research into how to ensure water delivers the greatest impact, and we collaborate with local organisations deliver the projects, thereby making a further contribution to generating a sustainable local economy.
The organisation and governance of our business is an important differentiator, which gives us credibility and helps us to attract the calibre of corporate partner that we need to succeed. Organisations like Grundfos, ZAWAFE, the United Nations, Qatar Airlines and more. Our goals are audacious, and we need to attract large, heavy-hitting partners to help us meet them.
Our founder, Veronique Bourbeau
Veronique Bourbeau is an ultra-distance runner with a passion for humanity. She is driven to make a change in the world, to put right injustices and to create better lives for the most disadvantaged communities.
She credits her passion and her hyper resilience to a near-death experience she had at the age of just 12, when she drowned and was brought back to life. She realised that life now held nothing for her to fear, which allowed her to push herself to her full potential.
Veronique took up running in her 30s – when she was already a mother, a student and a full-time worker. Never one to do things by halves, her first race was a marathon – and she was hooked. Running was a sport at which she excelled, and soon marathons were not enough, and Veronique moved on to ultra-distance running.
Vero established herself as an ultra-runner by running the length of Japan. She covered 3010km in 72 days – or in other words, one marathon a day for two and half months.
Veronique has won almost every ultra-race in Asia and SE Asia. In 2019, she competed in the Malaysia 444km C2C race with a time of 98.27h. She not only won the race, outright, but broke the event record.
As a journalist by profession, Veronique had spent time in Senegal, where she was struck by the impact on communities of having no easy access to fresh, clean water. Very aware of her own privilege and the injustice of having a pill that transforms dirty water into clean and safe water when the communities around her didn’t, Veronique vowed to make a difference. Veronique put her humanitarian goals and her sport together and Run4Humanity was born.
With the creation of Run4Humanity, Vero has a new focus for her ultra-distance running – using it to change lives, one kilometre at a time. raise awareness of her mission to transform lives through clean, safe water.
Clean water transforms entire communities and changes lives.
