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When I was at university I was pretty heavily involved in working with Amnesty International. At one of their events, we heard a speaker called Kevin Bales, who had written a book called Disposable People, about the 12 million or so people still enslaved across the world.

So, we, myself and 2 friends, wanted to help in some way...to raise awareness of something that we didn't think existed to such a tragic extent. Sure, we knew about some of the worst forms of child labour and some of the human rights abuses within prostitution, but that so many people were actuall owned by others was a big shock. The images of shackled, muscular Africans packed into trans-Atlantic colonial ships was gone, but ownership, abuse, exploitation and intense suffering were still at the heart of the slave trade.

To raise money we decided on a huge charity challenge...to cycle the 10,000 miles from Cape Town to London, tracing the route of colonial and modern slaves from Africa to Europe.

The whole trip is detailed at www.capetowntolondon.co.uk with lots of diaries and photos.

In the end we raised £60,000 and did around 100 talks and presentations to 1000s of people.

It was only a tiny contribution to a gigantic problem, but its still probably the best thing I've ever done with my life.