THE British Backpacker Society, a leading international adventure travel project, will be showing its latest feature-length travel documentary, Across the Sahara(E) at the Regent Centre, Christchurch, on the evening of Monday August 13.

The society was founded by three former Highcliffe School students, Samuel Joynson, 26, Adam Sloper, 25 and Michael L Worrall, 25, each of whom retain strong links to the local area. Between them, the three founders have independently visited over 100 countries around the world, ranging from Somalia to Turkmenistan.

Established to promote and enable travel to off-the-beaten-track destinations in the developing world, underpinned by the belief that a more connected, mutually-understood world is a better world, the project achieves this aim through its social media presence, media exposure, travel writing, and unique video documentaries.

The British Backpacker Society has been featured on the BBC, Lonely Planet and the front page of the Middle East’s leading newspaper, Gulf News, in addition to countless other publications in over 15 countries.

The founders have undertaken certain British Backpacker Society expeditions for charity – such as a 10,000km overland journey from Southampton to Shanghai in aid of the Alzheimer’s Society – and they have undertaken other expeditions with the primary aim of changing international perceptions about certain regions of the world.

Highlights of the project to date include causing the Government of Pakistan to liberalise its tourist visa policy for the first time since 9/11.

The British Backpacker Society: Across the Sahara (E) is a feature-length documentary film about the team’s overland expedition through the world’s largest sand-desert.

The journey takes the team to Morocco, the Western Saharan Territories, Mauritania and Senegal and features all manner of unusual transports, ranging from the top of speeding freight trains to mine-field crossing taxis.

The British Backpacker Society have pledged that all of their proceeds from the film showing at the Regent Centre will be donated to UNICEF, in light of the work that the charity undertakes in the Saharan region of Africa.