In early June we will be flying to Kenya with a group of fellow mountaineers to climb Mount Kenya to raise money for Standing Voice (www.standingvoice.org) which focuses on improving the lives of people afflicted with albinism in Africa (see attached photos and details below).

Formed 3 million years ago, Mt Kenya is an extinct volcano often referred to as the 'Place of Light'. At 16,355 ft tall, Mt Kenya is the highest mountain in Kenya and second highest in Africa. For five days, we will battle altitude sickness, and rough and unforgiving terrain, before scrambling up the summit at an eye-watering height. On the last day of ascent we will set off at 3am for a final 5-hour climb in darkness to arrive as dawn brakes on the summit.
With some luck, we'll reach the summit on International Albinism Awareness Day, in celebration of the cause we're climbing for: the devastating plight of children with albinism in Tanzania. At the toughest moments on the mountain and particularly the night climb to the summit, we will focus our minds on the suffering of these people afflicted with albinism and try and imagine how hard their daily lives are in struggling with disability, abandonment and ostracisation. We will especially focus on the heartbreaking plight of those children abandoned by their own parents.

We have already begun an intense and gruelling training programme to make ourselves as fit as possible for the climb.


Albinism and Standing Voice:
Albinism is an inherited condition that affects the production of melanin in the body. People with albinism are extremely vulnerable to skin cancer – shockingly, in Tanzania where the UV index is very high, 90% of people with albinism die from skin cancer before the age of 30.

Worse still, those born with albinism in Africa are likely to be ostracised and violently abused by their community. Women with albinism are raped by HIV+ persons in the belief that their albinism is a ‘cure’. Across Africa, hundreds of people with albinism have been murdered and mutilated for their body parts, used in witchcraft rituals thought to bring wealth and fortune. This problem is at its worst in Tanzania, where – since 2006 – 76 people with albinism have been brutally killed, and many more mutilated.
Most victims have been children.

Since the killings began, more and more children with albinism have been abandoned by their parents and left to live in government camps for their protection.

Standing Voice is a force for change, a glimmer of hope for these ostracised people.

The charity is currently focusing its work on:

*   Continuing to grow a network of life-saving skin cancer prevention clinics into new districts across Tanzania, reaching 3000 people with albinism; in locations where its clinics have run longest, the charity has already reduced skin cancer by 85%

*   Implementing vision care services for 2000 people with albinism across Tanzania, helping visually impaired children read the blackboard and get a fair chance at education

*   Delivering training initiatives to boost income security and economic stability for hundreds of people with albinism and their families at the Umoja Training Centre on Ukerewe Island

*   Using interactive community theatre to transform hearts and minds in hundreds of remote towns and villages across Tanzania where the murders have been most prevalent, reaching thousands of Tanzanians

*   Working at the global level with the United Nations and World Bank to reshape policy and put the plight of people with albinism at the top of the international human rights agenda
*   Building a brand new Children’s Centre to reintegrate and care for the most vulnerable victims of abuse

These are the issues, the cause and the charity for which we will climb Mt Kenya.
Hopefully you will choose to sponsor our climb and thus we can help to make a difference.

Together we can save lives and change the futures of these people.

Please support our charity climb for this worthy cause and make a real, tangible impact on these people's lives.

Thank you.
Best,

Igor