The Power of the Paddle

This is the inspirational true story of the lengths to which one man went to fulfil a dream and keep his promise of making a positive contribution to the lives of the people, especially children, in the war-torn countries he'd come to know so well through his travels.

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'His name was Ibrahim. He was about five years old and the thing he wanted most in the world was to go to school.'

In a tiny country on the Horn of Africa, extreme adventurer, former soldier and star of Channel 4's Hunted Jordan Wylie made an extraordinary promise to a remarkable young boy. Ibrahim's home Djibouti is a refuge from neighbouring war zones, laying host to children excluded from the basic privileges we take for granted in the West. So, armed with skills learned from a lifetime of adventures, Wylie vowed to raise funds to build a new school for those children.

And thus began a series of exceptional challenges, seeing Wylie row solo across the pirate-infested Bab el-Mandeb Strait in a world first and run extreme marathons in ice-cold climates. To cap it off, he embarked on a journey stand-up paddleboarding around mainland Great Britain, along the way facing military firing ranges, crazy teenagers on jet-skis, psychotic jellyfish and, finally, Covid-19.

This is the inspirational true story of the lengths one man went to fulfil a young boy's dream - and of the good that can be achieved even in the hardest of times.