My names is Craig Hughes and I'll be cycling solo on my bicycle through Europe and Russia.

Setting off on the 1st July 2006 I will bicycle through fourteen countries. Challenge A2Z will take me from Alton England to France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and finally home... To add an additional challenge I am planning this route alphabetically according to the names of towns along the way, literally from A to Z. This will take three months covering a distance of 5,000 miles. This is to raise £30,000 for EDSA (averaging £6 a mile). EDSA is an Oxfordshire-based charity dedicated to supporting the education of young black people living in the poverty of the townships and informal settlements of the Western Cape. To reach this goal I am asking for your help.

How did the idea of touring by bicycle for charity come about?

I live in Basingstoke but was born and brought up in South Africa where I have travelled widely. I had a great education in a multi-racial school but I knew that millions of fellow South Africans, because of their colour, have been marginalised and even years after the end of the apartheid regime still have no access to adequate education. I believe that education is essential if people are to make better life choices, particularly in the face of the AIDS pandemic and poverty.

Education is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty and enabling people to build better lives for themselves and those around them. Because of the work done by EDSA and ASSET in educating young black people in the Western Cape (my home until I moved to the UK), I have chosen to help EDSA and ASSET to get more black students through their final years at school and into university.