Story
Firstly thanks for visiting our justgiving page!
Most of you may know that we - Mitil & Shiva (2 cousins who have a very love/hate relationship!), plan to climb Mount Kilimanjaro at the end of September (probably so one of us can throw the other one off the top!)...6 weeks from now! We have never done anything like this before, so it will be a huge challenge and personal achievement.
Kilimanjaro is the highest free-standing mountain in the world an impressive 5895m above sea level....we are hoping to reach its summit!
The climb itself will take 6 days in Tanzania. Tanzania is where our Mum's side of the family were born and raised, which adds more warmth to this special challenge. We will be accompanied by 4 other members who were stupid enough to agree to do this with us on the morning of 1st January 2012! Not sure whether it was a hangover decision from the New Year's Eve party the night before!
Together we plan to raise money for various charities. Our chosen charity is Shine, a charity very close to our hearts and one set up by an outstanding person who Shiva has had the privilege to meet and work with - Vineet Bhatnagar. Vineet single-handedly set up this charity using his own money to get it off the ground and has since built a school in Zambia. He spends 6 months of the year working in the UK and the other 6 months out in Zambia supporting the school. He actually goes to Africa and gets his hands dirty for a a cause he is so passionate about, so he needs all the help he can get!
Shine’s and Vineet's vision is of an Africa in which every child can read and write. Shine's mission is to help alleviate poverty in Africa by tackling one of its underlying causes ‐illiteracy‐among children in its poorest parts. They are achieving this by setting up literacy schools for orphans and vulnerable children within poverty‐stricken communities.They aim to empower children with the skills they need to escape the cycle of poverty into which they were born. Their current work is in Zambia, where Shine has purpose built a school to give the gift of literacy to over a hundred children - Shine Zambia Reading Academy.
Without the continued support of Shine, most of the children benefitting from the programme would be out of education and on the streets in the local shanty. Shine is a very small charity with low costs, so almost all their money goes to the children who need it in Zambia. This is why we are personally supporting this charity. Please dig deep and surprise us by helping us to raise EVEN MORE money than our target amount!
For those of you who know how scared we are of various creatures and know of our OCD levels will appreciate how out of our comfort zone this climb will be, so please please support us by making this challenge even more worthwhile! Think of it as paying to put us through the pains of no hygiene, no cleaning, snakes and insects (and a whole week without any beer for Mitil!) Hope that is enough incentive for you guys! :-)
Thank again!
Mit & Shiv