Retired Army Colonel Guy Deacon CBE has just completed a mammoth 6,000-mile solo drive from Sierra Leone to Cape Town, raising awareness for Parkinson’s disease.
Guy initially set out in 2019 to drive from the UK to Cape Town before the journey was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Guy was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 11 years ago whilst serving in the Army, and used the journey as an opportunity to document the mental and physical challenges of living with the disease. Parkinson’s has a range of impacts, and Guy in particular experiences rigidity which requires him to make slow and deliberate movements.
Raising awareness of Parkinson’s is a key issue in Africa because a huge number of people suffer from it, but the lack of awareness leads to social stigmatisation for many due to the overtly physical effects. Furthermore, the availability of neurologists and other medical experts mean access to diagnosis and treatment is very limited.
Guy therefore partnered with charities including Parkinson’s Africa and Cure Parkinson’s, raising £30,000 for a film and book documenting his experiences. These should be released by the end of the year.
Along with the challenges Guy faced as a result of Parkinson’s, Africa provided some surprises of its own. Security risk management was a concern. Some key partners assisted here, with Henderson providing support via a GPS tracker which was monitored 24/7 from our global operations centre. Ironically, the GPS tracker was stolen in Cameroon whilst Guys specialised vehicle was being fitted with a new clutch. Due to the mode of transport, border crossings also presented difficulties, where agents often require travellers to provide an address they will be staying at.
There were some less complicated surprises too. Traversing Western Africa requires crossing the Congo River, which bisects the continent and forms a stretch of the border between Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola. On the western side of DRC is the Matadi bridge, 148km from the river mouth, and the next option is the Kongolo bridge, around 3,900km upriver. Thankfully, the crossing through DRC was uneventful and even provided some of the better roads Guy experienced, despite DRC’s reputation as one of the most unstable countries in Africa.
Henderson proudly support Guy in his fundraising towards raising awareness for Parkinson’s across Africa and the world.
You can donate to Guy’s fundraiser here, with funds going towards post-production costs for the film and book.
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Telephone us on: +44 (0)207 730 5446, or email us at: london@hendersonrisk.com
