BRITISH GOVERNMENT staff around the world are set to complete a unique 24-hour global marathon relay on Saturday to help mental health charities across the world.

Diplomats and other overseas staff working for the British Government, as well their Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office colleagues in the United Kingdom, and their families, will take part to raise funds for mental health charities, including Mind in the UK.

Staff from more than 230 British embassies, high commissions, governors’ offices and consulates – from Samoa in the east to Vancouver, Canada in the west; from Wellington, New Zealand in the south to Reykjavik, Iceland in the north – will complete the run. Within the Caribbean, ten of TT’s neighbours will take part including Barbados, the Bahamas and Guyana.

The UK’s High Commissioner to TT, Harriet Cross, will start off the relay around the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port of Spain on Saturday morning. A small number of British High Commission colleagues will follow a mile apart. After receiving the virtual baton from the British team in Anguilla, they will pass to colleagues in Bridgetown, Barbados to complete their leg of the challenge.

Cross said, “Covid brings with it mental health as well as well as physical challenges. We wanted to do this run to show support for all those who are suffering with their mental health at this very difficult time.”