From G8 to 10k: 2 days helping Africa

3:29pm Wednesday 6th July 2005

He has travelled the length of the country, covered nearly 10 miles on foot and raised thousands of pounds in one weekend.

Now Duncan Parker, from Thornton Heath, says he is hoping that the world's eight most powerful leaders were listening to the message that he and thousands of other people who marched through Edinburgh on Saturday called for: to make poverty history.

The 31-year-old director of the Salvation Army's international development unit joined more than 200,000 people on the streets of Edinburgh prior to the start of the G8 summit at Gleneagles today (Wednesday).

Less than 24 hours later he completed a 10k run through central London passing through Hyde Park where the Live 8 concert was held on Saturday to raise money for a Salvation Army project to provide clean water for people in north Tanzania, Africa.

Duncan said: "What we are waiting to see is if the G8 leaders will come through with their promises.

"There was a very strong message on Saturday and we hope that they heard that. There were 200,000 to 250,000 people on the streets of Edinburgh, people from all over the world and not just the UK.

"We were all very clear that what we were doing was something very special and very momentous."

He said the message was also twofold: it was a message to the G8 leaders that the public had placed their trust in them to deliver on promises already made and it was a message to people in the developing world that they were not alone and their voices were being heard.

A veteran of two marathons, Duncan completed Sunday's 10k run in just over an hour.

He hopes to have raised around £2,000 to help build a well for a community in north Tanzania where there have been cases of cholera and dysentery.

He added: "The women walk anything up to four miles a day to get clean water so running six miles was not that hard."

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