28 Jun 30,000 Feet Above the World: Nick Leventis and Global Angels
There is a particular kind of courage that has nothing to do with speed.
Nick Leventis built his career going fast — winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2010, founding Strakka Racing, competing at the highest levels of endurance motorsport for fifteen years. But the acts that say the most about who he is have never involved a circuit or a stopwatch. They involved a plane door opened above the Himalayas, and a rope over the edge of London’s tallest building.
Both were for children. Both were done long before Uprising Foundation existed. And both point directly to the person who would eventually co-found it.
The Jump
In October 2010 — the same year Strakka won at Le Mans — Nick Leventis stepped out of a plane at 30,000 feet above Mount Everest. The altitude record for a civilian tandem skydive. The jump was made in support of Global Angels Foundation, an international charity working with some of the most vulnerable communities on earth, and specifically in support of their operations on the Thai-Burma border.
The people Global Angels were reaching there were Karen refugees — communities who had fled Burma, hiding in jungle border regions, cut off from food, medicine, education, and safety. Among them were orphaned children and former child soldiers, young people who had already experienced things no child should ever have to face. Global Angels were on the ground providing emergency relief: food, clothing, water, medicine, shelter — the fundamentals of survival, delivered to people the world had largely stopped looking at.
Nick’s jump raised £100,000 for that work. One man, one act of deliberate exposure to extreme altitude and risk, translated directly into food and education for children at the margins of the world’s attention.
The Rope
Two years later, in September 2012, he stood on the 87th floor of The Shard in London — then the tallest building in Western Europe — and went over the edge. Two hundred and fifty metres of descent down the outside of Renzo Piano’s glass tower, one of only 40 people selected for the attempt, alongside Prince Andrew and mountaineer Sir Chris Bonington.
This time, the beneficiaries were the Royal Marines Charitable Trust Fund, supporting active and retired soldiers, and The Outward Bound Trust — an educational charity built on the same conviction Uprising would later make its own: that challenging outdoor experiences transform young people in ways nothing else can.
Before the abseil, Nick trained with the Royal Marines themselves. He went over the edge properly prepared, properly committed, and fully aware of what he was doing and why.
“One of the most incredible experiences of my life,” he said afterwards. “The worst bit was definitely the first few seconds when you go over the edge. It’s a real heart-stopping moment.”
What This Tells Us
Nick has never been drawn to risk for its own sake. The pattern across every extreme act he has taken on — the Everest skydive, The Shard abseil, the years at Le Mans, the big waves at Nazaré — is that the discomfort has always been in service of something larger than himself.
“I guess that was always kind of my hobby,” he said when he retired from racing. “But now I’m starting to realise I can turn my hobby and my passion into my purpose.”
Uprising Foundation is that purpose made permanent. The children on the Thai-Burma border, the soldiers supported through the Royal Marines Trust, the young Portuguese surfers getting their first waves at Nazaré — they are all expressions of the same long-held belief: that if you have the capacity to face something difficult, the most meaningful thing you can do with it is give that capacity to others.
The altitude record has long since been broken. The rope came down from The Shard years ago. But the conviction behind both is still very much alive.
Uprising Foundation supports vulnerable children, young athletes, and communities worldwide through direct action, mentorship, and long-term investment. To learn more, visit uprisingfoundation.com.
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