London calling for Vodafone fundraisers

Thirty Vodafone employees completed a walk from Luxembourg to London on 12 December to raise almost €50,000 to help their colleague walk again.

The ambitious fundraising campaign was launched by employees at Vodafone Luxembourg after their colleague Luca Antifora was involved in a life-threatening cycling accident whilst on secondment for the company in Qatar.

The accident left Antifora paralysed from the waist down, but his strength and determination to walk again propelled his colleagues to try to raise money to help him purchase an Exoskeleton. This modern technology will allow him to walk again.

"I’ve been in intensive training to use the Exoskeleton for a couple of months now. It’s very hard work to build the strength and balance I’ll need to walk, but knowing that I have this incredible support from my colleagues motivates me to push myself to my limits each time I’m in the training suit," said Antifora.

The walk covered a distance of 600 km between the company’s offices in Luxembourg and Vodafone’s headquarters in London. The walkers left Kirchberg on 8 December at noon and reached London on 12 December.

"This was the most challenging thing most of us have ever done. The distances were exhausting and the extreme weather conditions were testing but the teams covered the entire distance and have raised a huge amount of money, and we even managed some laughs along the way. I feel lucky to have walked with and to work with so many amazing people," said Kim Hurst who organised the fundraiser.

"What better way to support Luca’s ambition to walk again than for a bunch of his colleagues to walk a crazy distance across four countries and collect some money along the way," said Karl Burns, Head of HR at Vodafone Luxembourg.

Vodafone Foundation has matched funds raised by the campaign. To support the campaign visit the funding page on GoGetFunding.