A VIRTUAL walk from John O'Groats to Land's End by mental health nursing students has raised £1,000 for a good cause in Alloa.

The fundraiser by the students and staff at the University of Stirling has seen the group cover a combined 2,430 miles to raise funds for the Resilience Learning Partnership (RLP) in Alloa.

Students and staff have been enjoying the Stepping UP! initiative so much, they decided that simply covering the longest possible distance from one end of the UK to another was not enough and so they continued until they were back where they started.

The mammoth effort, which has seen walks around iconic Clacks locations such as Gartmorn Dam as well as in Stirling, has netted £1,000 for Alloa-based RLP, a social enterprise that provides training and education specialising in psychological trauma and “lived experience”.

The fundraising partnership came about as Shumela Ahmed, managing director at RLP, has previously been at the university to teach students directly about the importance of understanding the effects of psychological trauma.

Stepping outside and racking up the miles for a good cause has been beneficial for the students as well, who have witnessed people becoming much more distressed in circumstances during the pandemic.

Their resilience and wellbeing had been impacted by Covid-19, but the fundraising activity has been an opportunity “to work together to get the equilibrium back, through walking, through physical activity and through meeting together as a community group who have all shared similar experiences”, as organiser and lecturer Margaret Conlon previously said.

Speaking after the final miles and funds were tallied up at the end of last week, Shumela told the Advertiser: “We are so grateful; to the mental health nursing students as well as the faculty team for deciding to take on this challenge.

“The money raised will allow RLP to support people who have lived experience of complex trauma.

“We often support individuals who do not fit nicely into funding targets and these funds will go directly to support them.

“We can't thank the mental health nursing students enough for what these funds will allow us to do, thank you so much.”