Three Crohnies, 3000km, one tuk tuk and absolutely no preparation.

What could possibly go wrong, right?!

On August 12, two friends and I - aptly named 3 Ply - are embarking on the Indian Rickshaw Run to raise money for Camp Purple Live 2020.

To sum it up, we will be driving a (personalised) tuk tuk 3000km through India – over 14 days and with as little preparation as possible.

Yes, we are nervous and so are our Mums!

I met Joshua Bardell and Sean Boult in January, while volunteering at Camp Purple Live, a camp for children and teens with Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis.

My time volunteering at Camp Purple Live earlier this year was incredibly humbling and special. I was struck by the strength and bravery of all the young campers. Over the course of a week, my young campers made me belly laugh, they made me rethink the important things in life, and they showed me the incredible need for such a camp - a place where they need not feel alone, isolated or 'different'. It is a place to make lifelong friends, compare stories and learn from those younger and older than themselves. That was the amazing thing - watching children and teens of all ages come together for each other.

IBD impacts a person in every way, shape and form. If we can show young people that they can live a good life - and that they don't have to go it alone - then we must!

This is why I'm here, and why I'm fundraising to help get more children to Camp Purple Live 2020.

We kickstarted our fundraising campaign in March and set ourselves a target of $15,000. Incredibly, we hit this more than a month out from the Rickshaw Run, so we upped the target to $25,000.

As we prepare to fly out to India on August 2, our fundraising pool stands at just over $22,000.

We have been so blown away by the generosity of friends, family, businesses and strangers, who have helped us on this journey so far - and we haven’t even got to the hard part yet.

We are covering our own personal costs, including airfares, food, accomodation, fuel, visas and vaccinations (and an additional $1000 that the Rickshaw Run team require us to raise for Cool Earth to save the rainforests), so 100 per cent of the funds raised on Givealittle go to Crohn’s and Colitis NZ for Camp Purple Live 2020.

The cool thing is we can decorate our tuk tuk as we please, so we will be plastering the names of our sponsors over our (hopefully) trusty steed.

If you want to follow our journey, we will also be documenting it on social media, with blogs and video, so check out 3 Ply on Facebook.