SISTERS Allie and Ciarran Minns are still raising funds for Hearing Dogs for Deaf People and Action on Hearing Loss (the previously named RNID), through their campaign ‘A Year to Hear’, in memory of their father.

The money raised will help towards the £40,000 it will cost to train a puppy called Ned, who has passed his initial exams with flying colours.

So far, the pair have run up 1,000 steps of the Heron Tower in London, their Maltings’ market stall raised much-needed funds towards their Christmas goal, a fire walk on the Southbank (completed by Ciarran) and the pair created a video montage of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ in British Sign Language, with the help of their followers.

Ciarran has been training for a half marathon in June and swimming, in order to complete the distance of the English Channel over the course of a weekend.

“Training for the half marathon is so much tougher than I thought, but swimming is just unbelievably daunting to say the least. After my first effort of 30 lengths, I discovered that this could take me 21 hours. I’m very glad I’ll be in a pool with less chance of drowning” said Ciarran.

Allie has been training for a five-kilo metre sprint event tomorrow (Saturday), and is preparing to conquer her vertigo and abseil 100m down The Spinnaker Emirates Tower in Portsmouth on May 8. “Quite honestly, I’m terrified” she said.

On March 5 – their father’s anniversary – they asked people to go ‘Deaf for a Day’, by getting people to wear earplugs for a couple of hours or more, to further understand how being hard of hearing affects every day life.

A couple of fundraising events coming up this spring include an Easter gin raffle, to be drawn on Easter Monday, with lots of gin-related prizes.

And a pub quiz at The Hampshire Arms in Crondall on April 14, which will include a light dinner and a half-time raffle. Tickets for the quiz are £6 each and they have space for 10 teams of six. To enter email [email protected] to book a team in.

Any further information can be gained from the ‘A Year to Hear’ social media sites, which include Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter. They’re fundraising on Just Giving (justgiving.com/ayeartohear for Hearing Dogs, and justgiving.com/allieandciarrran for Action on Hearing Hearing Loss) and they can be contacted directly at [email protected].

The girls are extremely motivated to make this year work, not only to raise the much-needed funds for the charities, but most importantly, to raise awareness of deafness and how it affects so many people’s lives in so many different ways.