A group of students have been challenging themselves to get active every day of January for charity.

The Manx Students’ Union’s 10 committee members set a goal of walking, running and cycling every day of the month to reach a total 10 laps of the TT course (600km).

Raising money for mental health charities Isle Listen and Quing, they are doing it as part of the wider UK community initiative, RED January, which encourages people to support their mental health by doing something active every day.

MSU have already exceeded their distance goal, but won’t be slowing down until they reach their £600 target.

Founder Cat Woolley said, ’Throughout January people struggle more with their mental health more than in other months of the year and exercise has been proven to help boost people’s moods and improve overall wellbeing.

’We thought RED January was something we could do together as a committee to support the island even though many of us are in the UK currently.

’We decided to donate to Isle Listen and Quing because of their focus on mental health and this aligns with our welfare message of RED January.

’These two organisations have supported us since our establishment last year and we can’t thank them enough.’

Cat said the majority of students are struggling with their mental health at the moment, due to distance learning with minimal support from universities. She explained: ’Lots of us are having trouble to find the motivation to complete our best work, which will ultimately have an impact on our grades when we graduate. The whole committee has done amazingly and really put their all into it.

’We’ve all supported each other through it and always catch-up on our favourite routes of the week in our committee meetings. We have just under a week to go and want to raise as much money as possible for the fantastic charities.’

Donations can be made via the MSU’s JustGiving page: www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/msuredjan.