26 Miles 4 MND is a fundraising and awareness campaign with the goal of helping to defeat motor neurone disease.

It was started by two friends – former BBC cameraman Miles Pilling (who lives with a form of motor neurone disease) and photographer Cristian Barnett.

MND kills more than half of those diagnosed within 3 years. It paralyses people but leaves their mind fully functioning. At present there are no effective treatments and no cure. There are promising research trials underway but we desperately need cash to get to our goal of a world free of this awful disease. If you can, please donate any amount here.

We aimed to find 26 people affected in different ways by motor neurone disease and to spread and share their stories on Instagram and then in a book. Against Miles’s better judgement he was persuaded to be in every photograph alongside the main subjects too – hence the name 26 Miles 4 MND!

Cristian is a keen runner and set himself marathon running challenges to help raise more cash and also to publicise the campaign.

We imagined the project would be completed in a year. Fast forward six years – The Instagram campaign was a great success and in 2019 Cristian and two other of Miles’s friends ran the Hull marathon relay, smashing our £2,600 fundraising target which is now sitting above £5,000. In 2021 Cristian raised even more sponsorship money running in the Vitality Big Half marathon.

One in 300 people will develop MND. It kills more than half within 3 years of diagnosis. We’d love to be able to give more to the MND Association as treatments and a cure are possible but we desperately need cash to achieve this. If you can, please donate here to help.

Cristian and Miles travelled the length and breadth of England and into Scotland photographing and interviewing people for their book. It includes a robotics scientist with ALS who aims to beat MND by becoming a cyborg, scientists with behind the headlines news on MND research, people living with different forms of MND, MND nurses, volunteers, researchers and many of the normally unseen people who spend their time trying to beat this devastating disease and who support the people who live with it.