This project stemmed from an innocent conversation in 2006 between myself and my friend, Michelle, who had just come back from trekking across the Sahara Desert. The conversation quickly progressed on to us talking about extreme activities. I suddenly (and very innocently) said that had always wanted to do a skydive but never had the confidence to do so.

Michelle then asked me why don't I just do it. I couldn't really give a good reason other than my fear of heights. But fear is just an ideological position and it's a silly excuse anyway. So, without thinking, I said yes, on the condition that Michelle does one alongside me. Michelle was suffering from a hangover at the time and she agreed.

The jump was originally planned to go ahead in 2007, but that was before I ran into difficulties of getting the medical permission for me to do the jump. At the same time, I had to decide what I wanted to do for my third-year final degree project, so I made my skydiving conquest into a television documentary project as well.

I am registered as 'disabled' due to having Cerebral Palsy and therefore I had to get my doctor's permission before I went any further. I had to get to sign this yellow form to say that he was happy for me to do the jump. However, due to my physical difficulties and the fact that he asked whether I got spasms (or 'uncontrolled hypertension') to which i replied yes, he didn't feel able to sign it.

This was because of his assumption that the spasms I get were in my legs and therefore, he was worried about my legs spasming out on landing. The problem was that this worry was caused by fear and assumption as the doctor did not ask whether the spasms occur in my legs and whether they spasm outwards or in wards. The spasms in question are simply knee-jerks (meaning that my legs recoil), which happen when I hear sudden loud noises.

Since then, this project has become more than just about raising money for charitable causes. Due to my fight through bureaucracies to get the medical permission for me to even get assessed to do a jump (as being documented in Like A Bat Out Of Hell (the skydive) (the skydive)), I also want to use this to highlight how human-made ideologies (e.g. fear, bureaucracy, assumptions, etc.) sometimes obstruct us from doing what is right (for example, abolishing poverty).

However, all of the permissions have now been given. The interesting thing is that the difficulties were directly caused by confusion caused by fear caused by bureaucracy caused by humans.

This kind of thinking can be applied to all areas and issues within our global culture. Poverty and the root cause of social divisions are just two examples. My hope is to get this point across. So, please help me to raise as much sponsorship as possible.