Life Bridge: 10 City Bridge Run
Life Bridge is a project which asks how might we use our networks to help alleviate child mortality. Child mortality remains an intractable problem globally, despite all the advances in medicine.
Introducing Matt Jones: Life Bridge originated from Matt Jones as his passion project to bring about change where it is needed most. He cannot do this alone, and only you have the ability to bring this to life by supporting this initiative.
Matt's background: an Australian Army Officer, a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon. He was awarded the Australian Active Service Medal for his role in East Timor. Matt's military experience was varied, extending across two decades. In 2004, Matt was responsible to stand-up then manage the Australian Army response to the 2004 tsunami relief effort.
In 2004, Matt received a prestigious Churchill Fellowship to undertake research through UK and USA to examine successful models of social enterprise. This was a turning point as it was an opportunity to see new ideas.
Matt writes: "Thank you to everyone for your support and encouragement. I am thoroughly encouraged to go hard right down to the last mile because of the people who have supported this initiative."
Matt is encouraged by remembering the African proverb:"If you want to go fast, travel alone. If you want to travel far, then let's go together."
Human Bridges: This is a stunt designed to open a conversation to address whether it might be possible to reduce child mortality through the creation of a 'human bridge' in the context of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal 4.
The journey will examine a theme of 'human bridges' and what this might look like towards working towards a tangible outcome in order to make a difference to child mortality. The bridges we are building are made possible because of the support of people just like you. You too can support this project here. Let's make this count.
Life Bridge draws inspiration from a quote by Ophelia Dahl (co-founder of Partners in Health and daughter of renowned children's book author Roald Dahl) taken from a graduation speech when she quoted Adam Hochschild who earlier wrote about the importance of "drawing connections between the near and the distant":
"Linking our own lives and fates with those we can't see will, I believe, be the key to a decent and shared future... Imagination will allow you to make the link between the near of your lives and the distant others and will lead us to realise the plethora of connections between us and the rest of the world, between our lives and that of a Haitian peasant, between us and that of a homeless drug addict, between us and those living without access to clean water or vaccinations of education, and this will surely lead to ways in which you can influence others and perhaps improve the world along the way."
(The story behind this quote was also taken from Bill Shore's outstanding 2010 book: "The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men: inspiration, vision and purpose in the quest to end malaria")