A Rough Map of the 7 Wonders in 7 Days Journey

7wondersIn7days.com was conceived on 5th April 2009 after Chi-chi Ekweozor was moved by an episode of The Secret Millionaire, Channel 4’s incredibly inspiring undercover entrepreneur TV show.

The premise of the Secret Millionaire is this:

a millionaire lives undercover in a deprived part of the UK for a number of days, moonlighting as an unemployed job-seeker whilst s/he seeks people she can help with his/her fortune.

The episode in question featured a Scottish female entrepreneur called Jennifer Cheyne living in Wales and posing as a hair dresser.   Cheyne had built up a multi-million pound hair dressing empire from a £2000 loan from her father.

Whilst in Wales, Jennifer volunteered at charities helping the families of victims of cancer and a support network for people caring for people suffering from Alzheimer’s.

The hour long programme charted her success, with the ups and downs of living with a secret identity contrasted with the very desperate physical and emotional stress of the suffering of the real people she encountered.

Chi-chi was moved to tears by the programme having returned from her grandmother’s funeral in Nigeria less than two months before.  Her grandmother died from health complications arising from Alzheimer’s Disease.

Whilst browsing through a local Manchester entertainment magazine called The Scene (published by Concept Publishing) after the programme ended, she spotted a challenge at the end of an article about the New 7 Wonders of the world.

The challenge stated:

“You’d either be very crazy or very rich to attempt to see all 7 new wonders in one two week trip…”

Somehow Chi-chi misread the end of the statement and decided to take on the challenge of seeing all 7 new wonders in a one week trip.

And 7wondersin7days.com was born.

Inspired in part by Paul Smith’s Twitchhiker project in which he travelled half way across the globe relying on the goodwill of Twitterers, Chi-chi aims to travel to see the 7 new wonders of the world in 7 days from 10th October 2010 (10/10/10), raising £777,000 for 7 charities.

The 7 Charities being supported by 7 Wonders in 7 Days

The plan is to use this trip to raise the profile of a foundation for education dedicated to the memory of her amazing grandmother which she is starting with her parents.

The Jessie Ekweozor Memorial Foundation is being created to do charitable work with disadvantaged young people both in the UK and in the Nigerian village where her grandmother lived most of her life.

The 7 new wonders of the world are:

Chichen Itza, Mexico
Christ the Redeemer, Brazil
Colosseum, Rome, Italy
Great Wall of China, Republic of China
Machu Picchu, Cuzco, Peru
Petra, Jordan
Taj Mahal, Agra, India