A TEAM that met when they attended Ilkley Grammar School is to represent Yorkshire in the 2016 Mongolia Charity Rally.

One Steppe Beyond is made up of 24-year-old Matthew Wild, his twin brother William and their 23-year-old friends Megan Hampton and Oliver Hayes, who between them have been Explorer Scouts, completed the Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Award and studied abroad for a year, so have a sense of adventure and the desire to help others less fortunate.

The Mongolia Charity Rally is an epic 10,000-mile pan-continental road trip for charity across three mountain ranges, five deserts and many barren and inhospitable lands. The team will travel through 17 countries, cross two seas and follow the footsteps of Marco Polo along Silk Road through Central Asia.

One Steppe Beyond have purchased and prepared a 4x4, and on July 8 they will be driving it 10,000 miles from Ilkley to Mongolia to deliver the vehicle to a hospital in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia.

On arrival, the team will pass their 4x4 over to the GoHelp charity, which will make the necessary upgrades required to help the vehicle serve the local rural population as an ambulance. Through this, the team aims to improve the healthcare to the local communities whose access to these needs has declined due to rapid urbanisation.

Matt said: "In rural areas of Mongolia, access to primary health care is severely limited by both the scale of the country – Mongolia is 6.5 times larger than the UK – and poor existing road infrastructure.

"Providing an off-road ambulance to Mongolia will enable hospitals to engage communities further afield, whilst helping to meet the current shortfall of ambulances.

"We also aim to address the issue of worldwide healthcare inequality through educating and raising awareness in the UK via social media. Through the act of physically driving from Yorkshire to Mongolia, we hope to communicate an idea of global connectivity across international borders."

In preparation for the challenge, the team has studied car mechanics, applied for visas, developed a route, procured the vehicle and undertaken training in first aid.

Matt added: “Taylors of Yorkshire has donated us a big supply of Yorkshire Tea, and you can’t get too lost with a cup of Yorkshire Tea to hand!"

The Mongolia Charity Rally forms part of Go Help’s Ambulance Project. Since Go Help was founded, 26 ambulances have been donated, which were then in turn either donated to hospitals, clinics and NGOs, or retained for use in charity projects.

Visit the team’s fundraising page gofundme.com/onesteppebeyond for more details