Charity Skydive

Rupy Kaur, a former student of Sale Grammar School, has completed an adrenaline filled experience by doing a tandem parachute jump at Grange over Sands in the Lake District in aid of the charity ‘Hope not Hate'.

The fall was from 14,500 feet where she free fell for 45 seconds. Rupy has had cerebral palsy since childbirth due to a lack of oxygen to her brain and has been in a wheelchair all her life, but has never let her disability disadvantage her.

Rupy left Sale Grammar in 2005 and went on to study Psychology at the University of Manchester and now works for the Department of Transport.

She is also an active participant of the National Union of Students, a voluntary membership organisation which makes a real difference to the lives of students and its member students' unions.

Rupy told us "About two years ago a friend of mine who is not disabled did a skydive but I really didn't think it was an option for me as I have severely limited mobility. I started to look into it around the time of my 21st birthday and I was amazed to find that I could. I think because of my disability I had always been told that I couldn't do things and so have always rebelled."

Video of Rupy's skydive - quite inspirational we think you'll agree!

After the parachute jump, Rupy posted the following on her blog.

"As you probably know I finally jumped out of a plane on Saturday. The whole experience was absolutely amazing and I have definitely got the bug to do another one, soon. The scariest bit was the actual freefall. I remember closing my eyes as my instructor and I jumped out of the plane and then 10 seconds after jumping I opened my eyes and all I could see was the ground moving closer and closer. However when the parachute opened everything was so serene and peaceful until my instructor kept spinning me around, but I liked that. The people at the parachute centre were absolutely amazing with regards to my needs and had everything prepared for the landing.

I think this skydive has been one of the best experiences of my life so far. I hope I have done HOPE not hate proud and have raised awareness about the organisation. I also hope that I have encouraged other people to stand up for what they believe in.

Through the skydive we have raised over £2000 and I would like to thank everybody who has supported me. A big thank you to my sponsors. I'd also like to thank HOPE not hate for designing the website and spreading the news, but my biggest thank you is to my friends and family who have put up with me for about eight months now while I've been waiting to do the skydive and constantly talking about it. Finally I'd like to give a huge thank you to the Northwest Parachute Centre for being absolutely amazing with regards to meeting all my needs on the day and just being so happy."