Ready for the challenge: Ben and Jake Eckett and Eddie Nunn have been training hard for tomorrow’s epic Highland journey
A group of men from a Croydon-based youth organisation will be setting off at dawn tomorrow on one of the country’s toughest endurance challenges – covering almost 60 miles by swimming across a Scottish loch, cycling through the mountains of the Highlands, running demanding fell trails and paddling through turbulent rivers.
Ben Eckett, the co-founder of the Be Inspired community interest company, his brother Jake and youth programme beneficiary Eddie Nunn are taking part in the Great Kindrochit Quadrathlon in the Scottish Highlands: a mile-long open water swim across Loch Tay, a 15-mile mountain hike, a seven-mile kayak and a 36-mile cycle ride.
The trio are taking on the challenge to raise funds, but also as a tribute to Adam Ballard, their friend and the co-founder of Be Inspired, who died suddenly earlier this year.
After originally setting up Gloves Not Gunz boxing club in Norbury, last year Ballard helped establish Be Inspired with a continuing mission to offer young people real alternatives to violence, exploitation and marginalisation. He built trust, offered structure and believed in young people who had been written off.
Eddie Nunn, from Croydon, was one of those helped by Be Inspired. Now 21, Nunn was excluded from school and sent to a pupil referral unit before walking into a boxing gym where Ballard was working. That meeting changed his life.
“I was a naughty kid, always in trouble, but Adam took me under his wing, helped me get my first job,” Nunn says. “He travelled all over the country with me for the boxing, and showed me there was more to life than getting in trouble. He became a father figure to me, especially when I didn’t really have mine around. Without him, I don’t know where I’d be.”
Founded in 2017 as Gloves Not Gunz, today Be Inspired reaches more than 2,000 young people across London each year, and operates in Lambeth and Southwark as well as Croydon.
Referrals come from schools, pupil referral units, youth offending teams, social workers and even concerned parents. Many of the young people referred have experienced significant trauma. Be Inspired works by building long-term relationships, combining physical activity with emotional support. Boxing teaches discipline, therapy helps process trauma and mentoring provides guidance and belief.
Croydon saw one of the highest numbers of under-25 knife crime incidents in London last year, according to police data. Youth violence continues to increase across south London, while funding for youth services declines.
Legacy: Be Inspired co-founder Adam Ballard died earlier this year
Earlier this year, an £80,000 grant from the Wates Family Enterprise Trust helped strengthen Be Inspired’s core work. Tomorrow’s Quadrathlon hopes to add to the funding and help expand the organisation’s work further.
Since Ballard died in March, Ben Eckett has found purpose in carrying the work forward, even as he processes the grief of losing his closest friend and collaborator.
“Adam was everything to this organisation,” he says.
“He was the one who made people feel safe, who made the gym a second home. Since he passed, there have been some very tough days for all of us, but this challenge is part of the answer. It’s how we honour him and keep the mission alive.”
The group is aiming to raise £25,000 through the Quadrathlon, with further fund-raising efforts through to the end of the year with an overall target of £100,000 to support Be Inspired’s work.
The team has trained together for months, supporting each other through cold swims and punishing climbs. From Croydon’s estates to Highland peaks, the contrast is stark, but the mission stays the same.
“Every day we’re helping young people deal with fear, anger, grief,” Ben Eckett says. “We offer them the same things Adam offered so many: belief, patience, somewhere to go. We don’t give up on them, even when others do.”
The group is hoping for public help to honour the legacy of Adam Ballard.
“You don’t have to swim across a loch or climb a mountain,” Ben says. “We’ll do that.
“But you can help us reach the real summit: giving young people a fair shot at life.”
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