Why on Earth Are We Doing This?
So, in February 2027, Emma and her co-driver, Priscilla “Cills” Giles, will set off from southern India in one very small vehicle with three wheels, limited horsepower and absolutely no respect for Emma’s fondness for travelling quickly. This is perhaps just as well, given her long and distinguished history of speeding fines.
Their journey will take them through towns, cities, mountains, heat, dust and, almost certainly, several wrong turns. This is particularly heroic because neither Emma nor Cills drinks alcohol, tea or coffee—and both are deeply suspicious of curry. Their principal fuel source may therefore have to be cheap chocolate and Candy Kittens.
But behind the laughter is a serious purpose.
The Asha Drive aims to raise at least £500,000 and, just as importantly, to shine a light on children’s palliative care in both India and the UK. In India, specialist services remain desperately limited and difficult for many families to reach. In Britain, children’s hospices provide remarkable care, but they depend heavily on charitable support to continue doing so.
The campaign will support five carefully selected charities working with vulnerable and seriously ill children in India, alongside Together for Short Lives, the national UK charity supporting the UK’s 54 children’s hospices and the families who rely upon them.
The entire expedition is being funded by the team. Every penny donated by the public will go to the charities—not towards petrol, hotels, tuk-tuk repairs, emergency sweets or extracting Emma and Cills from a ditch.
Most people looking for a new challenge might book an adventurous holiday, learn a new skill or take up a slightly questionable hobby. Emma Deterding has decided instead to drive a tiny tuk-tuk across India—from Kerala to Kashmir—before returning to Britain to travel from Felixstowe to Fife, visiting all 54 of the UK’s children’s hospices.
This is not, she insists, a midlife crisis. It is far too badly air-conditioned for that.
The Asha Drive has grown from Emma’s lifelong commitment to children’s palliative care. In 1990, a television programme about Acorns Children’s Hospice opened her eyes to the extraordinary work of children’s hospices and the families they support. She has been involved in fundraising and advocacy ever since, becoming a Patron of East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices in 1996 and serving as a Trustee for nine years.
More than 35 years later, Emma still believes passionately that every seriously ill child—and every family caring for them—should have access to dignity, comfort, practical help and moments of genuine happiness, wherever they live.
Why might you want to support us? Because no family facing the unimaginable should have to face it alone. Your donation can help provide medical care, education, emotional support, respite and precious time together. It can also help us persuade more people, businesses and governments to recognise that children’s palliative care is not an optional extra; it is an essential part of a compassionate society.
“Asha” means hope, wish, desire and aspiration. That is what this journey is really about: carrying hope from Kerala to Kashmir, and then from Felixstowe to Fife—one noisy, determined and rather ridiculous mile at a time.
Please support The Asha Drive, share our journey and help us put-put for palliative care.
One Tiny Tuk-Tuk. One Big Mission.
The ‘Why’ behind the drive
Families caring for children with serious illnesses often face challenges that most of us can barely imagine. They may need to manage complicated medical care, sleepless nights, financial pressures and constant uncertainty.
Children’s palliative care surrounds these families with specialist support. It helps control pain and symptoms. It provides respite and practical advice. It gives parents someone to call when they do not know what to do next. And it helps children experience as much comfort, happiness and normality as possible.
Emma has supported children’s hospice care for more than 35 years. She has seen the extraordinary difference this support can make. She has also seen how many families still struggle to access it.
The Asha Drive exists to help change that.
Why a tuk-tuk?
We needed a way to make people stop, look and ask questions. A tuk-tuk seemed like a good place to start. Asha is small enough to feel vulnerable, unusual enough to attract attention and determined enough to keep moving.
Her name means hope. As she travels across India and Britain, she will help us begin conversations about children’s palliative care in towns, cities, hospices, schools and communities.
Every stop will give us another opportunity to share the work being done and invite more people to support it.
Join the movement
Meet the team
Emma Deterding
– Founder, Driver & Chief Instigator
Emma has spent most of her life proving that organisation is entirely optional.
The only time her mother was genuinely happy was when Emma passed her driving test at 17. Sadly, that moment of pride has been somewhat diluted by an impressive collection of speeding fines ever since.
A lover of colour, history, India and slightly ridiculous ideas, Emma somehow divides her time between Norfolk and London while running Kelling Designs, Kelling Home, Kelling Staging, Serucchi London, holiday lets and a growing list of projects that sensible people would politely decline.
Despite hating grease under her fingernails, she has decided that driving a tuk-tuk the length of India is an excellent idea.
For more than 35 years, Emma has championed children's palliative care, serving as both Trustee and Patron of EACH. The Asha Drive combines her two favourite things: helping children and persuading other people to join adventures they didn't see coming.
Officially: Founder and Driver.
Unofficially: Chief Instigator, serial project starter and living proof that enthusiasm often arrives before a plan.
Priscilla "Cills" Giles
– Co-Driver, Mechanic & Queen of the Desert
Every expedition needs someone practical.
Emma found Cills and promptly asked her to drive several thousand miles across India in a tuk-tuk.
Remarkably, she said yes.
Cills is the person most likely to know where the toolkit is, how to fix what's broken and why nobody can find the thing they were supposed to pack. She is co-driver, mechanic, photographer, videographer, problem-solver and the calm voice in the chaos.
While Emma is busy talking to sponsors, journalists and complete strangers, Cills is usually working out how to get them all moving again.
In a bizarre twist, she and Emma share several highly unsuitable qualities for travelling across India. Neither drinks alcohol. Neither drinks tea. Neither drinks coffee. Neither likes curry. Yet somehow they both adore India and keep going back.
What they do share is an unwavering commitment to cheap chocolate & candy kittens, which has become the fuel behind much of The Asha Drive.
Officially: Co-Driver, Mechanic and Videographer.
Unofficially: Keeper of the toolkit, guardian of the emergency sweet stash and the person most likely to rescue the expedition.
Margaret "Maggie" Heath
– Fundraiser, Chief Cheerleader & Occasional Ringmaster
Maggie has spent most of her adult life persuading people to part with large sums of money for very good causes.
A formidable fundraiser, she has helped raise well over £10 million through charity galas, concerts, wine dinners, golf days and enough fundraising events to fill several lifetimes.
If there's a microphone, a room full of donors and a worthy cause involved, Maggie is usually somewhere near the middle of it.
For The Asha Drive she has become photographer, videographer, chief cheerleader, sounding board and trusted practice-run companion. She is also one of the few people willing to sit beside Emma for long periods while she explains yet another ambitious plan.
When she's not fundraising, Maggie can usually be found planning a trip, tending her garden, spoiling her spaniel or collecting Avios points with an enthusiasm bordering on a medical condition.
Officially: Fundraising Lead.
Unofficially: Chief Cheerleader, professional persuader and the woman most likely to turn a cup of coffee into a sponsorship deal.
Andra Fitzherbert
– Logistics, Operations & Chief Wrangler of Emma
Every expedition needs someone in charge.
Every expedition involving Emma needs Andra.
As the operational force behind The Asha Drive, Andra is responsible for making sure people are where they should be, when they should be there, with the information they should have remembered to read.
While Emma is busy dreaming up impossible routes and enthusiastic new ideas, Andra is quietly turning them into reality.
A key member of the Kelling Designs team, she has perfected the arts of organisation, diplomacy, patience and occasionally telling people what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear.
Every hospice visit, media opportunity, sponsor meeting and fundraising event passes through her capable hands before it happens.
Without Andra, The Asha Drive would still be a conversation over lunch.
Officially: Head of Logistics and Operations.
Unofficially: The Boss, Chief Wrangler of Emma and the reason anything actually happens.
The charities we are supporting
In the United Kingdom, The Asha Drive will support children’s hospice care through Together for Short Lives, which champions children’s palliative care services and the families who rely on them.
In India, the campaign plans to support FCRA-registered organisations working across palliative care, childhood cancer support, education, health and child welfare.
These organisations include:
Pallium India
CanKids KidsCan
Khushii
Salaam Baalak Trust
Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project
Final beneficiary arrangements will be confirmed before the fundraising campaign begins.
You can help make the journey matter
The distance Emma and Cills travel will attract attention.
But what we do with that attention is what matters.
Your donation can help more children receive specialist care.
Your support can help families feel less alone.
And your voice can help make children’s palliative care impossible to overlook.