Last weekend, sickness duos from UCD joined teams from all over Ireland as they participated in the Jailbreak competition. Students involved raised money for Amnesty International and St Vincent de Paul, sale while attempting to travel as far as possible from Dublin within 36 hours.

Organised by the university branches of these charities, treat along with the L&H, teams from UCD set out from Kilmainham Jail at 9am on Friday 22nd February. By 9pm on Sunday, this year’s winning team, Kyryll and Salim of TCD, managed to reached Sydney, Australia, 17,223 km from their starting location.

The four other winners included NUIG’s Team 2, Sean and Aoife who reached Bali, Team 25’s James and Conrad from TCD, who made it to Honolulu, Team 1’s Finn and Lulu who represented TCD in Singapore, while  Daire and Paul of Team 5, also of TCD, celebrated in Seattle. From UCD, Catherine and Dennis of Team 6 reached Jamaica, having stopped over in Orlando and  Team 8’s Andy and Liam made it to the United Arab Emirates.

Other UCD representatives found themselves in such locations as Bologna, Italy, Geneva and Switzerland. Team 8, Jack and Gred were UCC winners, reaching Bursa, Turkey. This year’s exotic locations rival the achievements of last year teams, who managed to arrive at such far flung locations as the Ukraine and Buenos Aires.

The various duos have been keeping spectators abreast of their situations via social media, posting pictures of themselves and their current locations throughout the various stages of their journeys on Facebook.

So far the teams have raised over €33,400 for the various charities. While in previous years the funds raised by participating teams went to the national branches of Amnesty and St Vincent de Paul, this year proceeds will go directly to the university societies. Amnesty UCD’s main focus this semester is on the struggle for women’s rights and equality.