Dear Friends,

  

In October 2011 I will be taking up the challenge of a lifetime by trekking to Everest Base Camp (5,300 metres) led by the inspirational Everest summiteer Susan Harper Todd and in aid of the charity Women for Women International UK.

  

I am doing this because of this and because I want to see a world where men and women work together side by side, hand in hand – something like Annie Lennox describes here.

  

I am doing this for all the inspirational women in my life, my mother, who thought she was dying when she had her first period, my grandmother, who sacrificed her education to raise 5 brothers and all the mothers and grandmothers in Afghanistan and Sudan and Kosovo who are making such huge strides in changing their countries for the better, despite the pain they have suffered in war. There are women who have gone before me, sufferagettes, mothers, teachers, mentors and friends who have enabled me to believe in myself and to believe I could do and be whatever I wanted to be. I am climbing for them and for a world where all women and girls one day have the same unquestioning belief in themselves and their abilities.

  

Please support me in raising vital funds for Women for Women International who support women to take fundamental steps to overcome the terrible trauma of violence and rape, by equipping them with the tools and resources necessary to move beyond crisis and poverty and build confidence and self sufficiency.

  

By donating to this cause you will be helping women like Pari Gul, a 42-year-old Afghan woman, who after taking part in Women for Women’s first vocational training session in Afghanistan in 2002, took up stone polishing and as a result now heads a profitable, 500-employee stone cutting and polishing company in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Despite being threatened, harassed and accused of corrupting Afghan women by the local community, Pari Gul has persevered and been able to send her eight children, including three daughters, to university – a luxury she was deprived off. “Afghan women face so many problems in Afghanistan – beating, stoning, killing,” Pari Gul says. “Here we feel so lucky to be able to be a part of Women for Women, to learn skills, help our families, educate our children.”

You can find out more about the trek & my progress in training for the trip thorugh our group blog or by following Women for Women UK on Twitter