Having run the London Marathon for the Sophia Zaveri Foundation in 2023, Patrick Hayes is upping the challenge this year, and will be running a marathon double in 2024 for the Sophia Zaveri Foundation!

Patrick will be running his second London Marathon in April and, later this year, will also take on one of the great world marathons in the historic city of Valencia in Spain. Upping the ante even further, he’s looking to run sub-3-hour times in both races.

He will be running to generate funds urgently needed by the Sophia Zaveri Foundation. The foundation was established in memory of Sophia - the daughter of Samir Zaveri, a close work colleague of Patrick's at Times Higher Education - who died on March 15th 2020 when she was only 13 years old.

The Sophia Zaveri foundation contributes to three charities, which reflect the spirit, compassion and bi-cultural roots of her caring and nurturing nature, and has supported orphanages, old folks’ homes and impoverished families.

This year's London Marathon is on April 21st 2024 and the Valencia Marathon is on December 1st 2024, please help Patrick reach his fundraising goal to help raise funds for some very important causes that have the potential to transform the lives of so many.

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About the Sophia Zaveri Foundation:

In memory of Sophia, who died on March 15th 2020 when she was only 13 years old, the Sophia Zaveri foundation contributes to three charities which reflect the spirit, compassion and bi-cultural roots of her caring and nurturing nature.

Sophia was born in Brazil and spent some of her growing-up years there, spending time between Brazil and the UK. She loved going back to Brazil to visit. She loved the warmth and the people and whenever she saw a poor person or a young child selling something to make money, she would say, “Can’t we help them or please buy something?”

If you could have met Sophia, you would have seen what a special girl she was. She lit up the room with her bright smile and made immediate friends with everyone she met.

Sophia loved children and helping others. She was always changing her mind about what she wanted to do when she grew up but she had already decided that she wanted to help orphans and the poor in her gap year before university. Sadly, she will never have that chance, but we like to believe she would have become a doctor, nurse or teacher so that she could do as much as possible to help others.

She was the Head Girl in her school and especially looked out for the younger children and always had something nice to say to them and about them. She loved to draw, sing, dance and learnt to play the piano. At home, she loved nothing better than to watch a movie with her parents on Netflix, talk with her older brothers by phone, or send them silly videos of her making different funny faces. She was truly the light of our lives.

Sophia will be eternally missed not only by her family but by everyone whose life she touched. Because of her constant desire to help others, we want to honour her memory and keep her light shining by helping others.

Below are more details of the three main areas we fund:

Support for orphanages and youth shelters.

Sophia always loved young children. She liked to play with them, make them laugh, take care of them and always felt comfortable and fulfilled around younger kids. She wanted to work with orphans in the future and it is one of the reasons that we (via Sophia’s father’s company, BMI) have provided support to orphanages in Colombia and Brazil over the years. From 2015 to 2018, Sophia and her father visited orphanages in Salvador (Brazil) around Christmas, delivering toys and enough food for a month.

The Sophia Zaveri Foundation will therefore offer continuous year-round support of food and supplies to orphanages in Salvador which shelter and educates young children.

Depending on donations and ongoing funding, we hope to build and open a new orphanage in Monte Gordo – a very poor town in Bahia in the northeast of Brazil where there is currently nowhere for orphans to find shelter (the nearest orphanage is 60 km away). Monte Gordo is very near Guarajuba – her favourite place in the world.

Support for those living in deprived Old Folks' Homes.

Care for the elderly who are on the fringes of society is scant in Brazil, especially if those senior citizens have mental health issues. The Foundation supports a charity which provides accommodation to these needy seniors. Support is directly delivered in the form of food, supplies, building maintenance and 'luxury' items such as adult nappies. By donating, you will be bringing relief and joy to these deserving elders. There is very little in life that is as satisfying as giving someone the gift of dignity.

Support for future doctors from impoverished families.

We will support five students from very poor families who, despite going to under-funded, under-equipped state high schools, were smart enough to get into one of the highly competitive federal universities where they are studying to become doctors. However, even though education is free in Brazilian federal universities, they often fail or drop out because they can’t even afford the bus fare to university, or they have to stop their studies in order to work to help feed the family or to deal with other life needs and hardships.

We will therefore cover a significant part of their expenses for the rest of their university studies to make sure that they can complete their degrees and achieve their dream of being a doctor or teacher. Upon completion, they are highly likely to return and help in their communities but will certainly earn enough to maintain their families. Currently, we fund 15 doctors in Brazil. Depending on funding, we hope to increase the number of students supported each year.