ASC Desert Challenge Appeal

We are the nominated charity for the Nefud Expedition, which will see a team of explorers attempt to travel across the Sun’s Anvil in the Nefud desert, in electric vehicles. All funds raised will go towards ASC’s Talking Out Programme.

TALKING OUT gives teenagers who stammer access to specialist therapy and support to help them make the most of their educational opportunities and make more confident choices about their future careers.

TALKING OUT is based on a series of residential and online courses with ongoing support throughout the year. Teenagers benefit from specialist therapy that would otherwise be unavailable to them, but they also meet other teenagers who stammer. Participation in outdoor challenges and other projects help them to build friendships and supportive networks.

Our target is to raise £120,000. This will enable ASC to run Talking Out for two years, helping us to support more and more teenagers who stammer across the UK.

About the expedition

The Nefud is a desert in the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula at 28.30°N 41.00°E occupying a great oval depression. It is 290 kilometres (180 mi) long and 225 kilometres (140 mi) wide, with an area of 103,600 square kilometres (40,000 sq mi).

The Nefud is a sand sea (erg) and is noted for its sudden violent winds, which account for the large crescent-shaped dunes. The sand in the Nefud is a brick-reddish colour and rain only comes once or twice a year. In some lowland areas, namely those near the Hejaz Mountains, there are oases where dates, vegetables, barley, and fruits are grown.

“The Sun’s Anvil” is an area of the north west Nefud where the sun relentlessly beats down on a vast plain of white sand. Because of the heat, glare and lack of available water, the local Bedouins consider the Anvil as impossible to cross by camel in the daytime. This remote, mystical area is characterised by the mirage and sand-devils conjured from the land by the rising breeze.

The primary objective of the Nefud Sun’s Anvil Expedition is to cross the Nefud and the Sun’s Anvil by pathfinding novel routes through the terrain in alternatively fuelled, low carbon-footprint vehicles. The secondary objectives are:

• To create and expedition template to minimise ecological disturbance and to reduce carbon footprint to a minimum
• Locating and recording lost archaeological features and sites in collaboration with the Saudi Arabian Mada in Salih archaeological foundation
• Creating maps of the route, terrain features and water sources

The team will be setting off in May 2024, and we will be hosting a series of fundraising events and opportunities up until that time.

For more information about how you can get involved, email [email protected]