Olly Runs Asia

My name is Olly Cohen, it’s Thursday May 1, 2025, my 27th birthday, and I am on a plane to India. There, I will embark on a three week ski expedition and then attempt to run 1000 miles as part of my personal project (I Run Earth ) to run 1000 miles on every continent.

In the run, I will set off without a specific destination, only with the desire to explore Forrest Gump style. My hope is to stay in the Himalayas monsoon-permitting.

You can express your support for my adventure by donating to this fundraiser for Rise Against Hunger, which provides meals to vulnerable people across the world including Indians, Africans, and Americans. In India, Rise Against Hunger has provided over 3.5 million meals to 200+ rural communities.

100% of your donation goes directly to Rise Against Hunger. Your donation also helps show my sponsors (currently Norda and Black Diamond) that I am making an impact on people, which in turn sustains my adventures. My last big run raised over $15K for Shoe 4 Africa.

Why did I select Rise Against Hunger for my charity fundraiser? 

Rise Against Hunger does the type of work that I came to feel most passionate about during my 1000 mile run in Africa, and it receives excellent ratings by third-party charity evaluators.

In Africa, I visited schools where 50% of the student body was malnourished. Teachers told us that the biggest impediment to learning was the kids’ hunger. They lacked the ability to focus in class and complained about the pain caused by empty stomachs.

For this reason, I believe that feeding kids in developing countries is an effective way to support their physical development and education. Compounding that, feeding kids is relatively cheap. $10 was enough to feed a family happily for a week in Tanzania and Kenya.

I was surprised to learn that hunger is every bit as prevalent in India as East Africa. 34.7% of Indian children under five are stunted from malnutrition compared to 26.% in Kenya and 31.8% in Tanzania.

Rise Against Hunger receives a 4-star rating with a score of 90% on Charity Navigator and a Platinum rating on Guide Star. In Charity Navivator’s Accountability and Finance assessment, RAH receives a score of 88 out of 100, losing points for poor liabilities-to-assets and working capital ratios. This means that RAH has relatively low assets compared to the size of its operation. The past three years their expenses have more or less matched with their revenue, To me this indicates that they convert donations directly to meals instead of putting some money in the bank. While I do have some concerns about RAH's ability to sustain all their programs in a bad fundraising year, I do really like the fact that your donation will likely go straight towards meals for vulnerable people. Please email me at olly dot k dot cohen at gmail.com if you have additional insights from these metrics.

How can you follow me?

I will post updates on my blog as well as on Instagram when I can.