Water advocate Mina Guli is set to embark on the challenge of a life time running 40 marathons, through seven deserts to deliver one message to the world – we have a water crisis and we need to do something about it, today.

If the world is split into those who talk and those who do, then Mina Guli is definitely the latter. The Australian born environmentalist, founder and CEO of Thirst – an educational water conservation charity – is taking on the gruelling seven week challenge across the world's seven continents to raise awareness of global water scarcity, a crisis that was ranked by the World Economic Forum for the last two years as the number one risk facing society.

“The problem I think with water is that it’s so far removed from our reality so we think that we turn the tap on, water comes out and we don’t have any idea that actually that’s not going to be a permanent state of affairs,” says Guli.

The challenge will see her run 1,040 miles (1,688km) through deserts in Spain, Jordan, Antarctica, Australia, South Africa, Chile and the United States of America, where she will subject her body to some of the harshest conditions on the planet, running through extreme stress and exhaustion in soaring temperatures up to 45°C and subzero conditions as low as -23°C.

The most surprising thing about Guli is that she had never had designs on being an athlete, it was only after jumping in a pool aged 22 and breaking her back that she found the determination after doctors told her she would never run again.

Since then she has undertaken several gruelling Ironman challenges, the 251km Marathon Des Sables across the Sahara and the six day Madagascar Marathon stunning the doctors who said it was impossible. Her main goal in life though is raising awareness of the more serious environmental issues and she will go to any lengths to achieve that.

“Water is my absolute number one priority because water is a fundamental building block of our society and without water we don’t have a future. I want every single person on the planet to have a dream they can achieve and without water that’s not possible.”

 Mina Guli was speaking ahead of running 40 marathons, across seven deserts, on seven continents, in just seven weeks to raise awareness of water scarcity. For more information on her challenge, visit www.Thirstforwater.org