How your support helped the RNLI in 2024
437 Lives saved
25,327 People aided by lifeboat crews and lifeguards
9,141 Lifeboat launches
I’m taking on the Mayday Mile Challenge to support RNLI volunteers
This May, I’m completing a mile-a-day challenge to help RNLI crews save lives at sea. I'm aiming to do this in one weekend - 31 miles in 3 days over the Bank Holiday weekend (2nd-4th May) and then continue to add additional miles to that over the rest of the month.
I'm particularly motivated to support the work of the RNLI as they are one group of people who are actively countering the narratives of hate against migrants and refugees, by their unapologetic humanitarian mandate to save all lives at sea, regardless of politics or immigration status of individuals.
A BBC article quoted an RNLI volunteer: Paula Lain, who works as a management consultant when she's not volunteering for the RNLI: "When our pager goes, we're not thinking anything political.
"We're all thinking about people. We're actively compassionate. That's what drives us beyond any moral or civic responsibility.
"When we're tasked, we don't know what we're going to be tasked to. We're there to help people in their most distressing times."
As temperatures rise during the summer season, attracting tourists and locals into our seas, calls to the Coastguards increase, and the RNLI are at their most busy, ready to take those calls to go out and save lives.
My brother drowned in the very cold February sea and it has always saddened me that no one saw him, to call the Coastguard so that he could have potentially been given the possibility of rescue. But it is some comfort that the RNLI exist and have saved so many other lives. It's my opinion that they should be properly State funded as an emergency service, but as they rely entirely on donations and volunteers, I want to give them any support I can.
Migrant small boat crossings make about 1% of those the RNLI go out to rescue. In 2025 their boats launched over 9000 times, they helped 8,290 people and saved 272 lives overall.
Their 2024 figures show they saved the lives of 58 migrants including children.
If the Coastguard informs them that people are in trouble, they launch a rescue to save them, whoever they are. They see each individual as a human, as a person. The BBC article goes on to quote volunteer Dan Sinclair, saying "what they see in the Channel has a profound impact on them".
"He recalls one recent rescue, telling the BBC: "There was a little girl on that boat.
"When we took that little girl - who was probably four years old - off that boat, she looked at me straight in the eye and she said 'Thank you. I love you.'"
In times of severe dehumanisation of those in need, the RNLI and their commitment to compassionate, indiscriminate rescue, is an inspiration. Small boat rescues and migrant lives are a small percentage of those they save - any of us who find ourselves in the water for any reason, could need them one day to save our own lives or those we love. Thank you for considering donating to my RNLI Mayday Mile Challenge and supporting the courageous crews.
