Gala Bingo Employees are raising money for the Sue Ryder charity with their trek to Everest Base Camp. They should be setting off today from Lukla, and when they get to the other end they aim to play Bingo on Mount Everest. Shameless publicity stunt? Perhaps, but they’re still putting the effort in for a good cause.

Happy hiking guys,

Gareth

Arriving at Everest Base Camp tomorrow is a charity expedition aiming to raise money for
the support of people with severe learning disablities by cooking.

Yes, that wasn’t a mis-type: a chef is currently moving along the Everest Base Camp Trek
armed with the ingredients of a meal she intends to prepare for her team at an altitude of
5,360 metres, with a glacier below and the mighty Everest towering above.

Sounds like the perfect setting for a breakfast, and were not talking about milk & cereal;
the trekking chef aims to make a posh salmon and caviar breakfast on the mountain.
Suddenly I’m feeling hungry.

Here are some more photos of our visits in Delhi to the Childreach-related projects. I’m really glad that we got to see this in the run up to our Everest base camp trek.

Hope you like em!
Rosanna

As it’s the anniversary of Hillary’s famous first summit success on Everest, I thought he deserved a mention.
Sadly, he died last year, but he left behind The Edmund Hillary Trust.

I think it’s important to remember the local community and environment when making a journey like mine, especially when I’m associated with a charity. We will rely on the Sherpa people and thier kindness so much, but without groups like The Edmund Hillary Trust, their lifestyle will only be damaged by our visits.

Since inception the achievements of The Edmund Hillary trust have been wide ranging. They include:

• Two hospitals and thirteen health clinics have been built.
• Over 30 schools have been built
• Over 100 students receive grants annually from the Trust for further and higher education. A programme of women’s Literacy Classes is evolving into Adult Education.
• For Sherpas, improvements in life expectancy have been achieved through programmes to control tuberculosis, smallpox and other life-threatening infectious diseases. Stillbirth and infant mortality has been reduced.
• Almost 100,000 young trees were nurtured each year and more than 1 million have been planted in 25 protected sites.
• Several Sherpas have gained degrees following training in forestry and in national park management in New Zealand and Canada.
• A three-year Primary Teacher Training project in Solu Khumbu attracted 200 teachers and is seen by HM Govt. of Nepal as a model for other rural areas. This has been so successful that it has been extended for another three years.
• A three-year Secondary Teacher Training project was grant aided by the The Community Fund with the grant matched by the UK Himalayan Trust.
• A pre-University Campus has been established in Solu district and attracts a high proportion of young women.
• The re-building of Thyangboche Monastery after a fire was helped mainly by the Himalayan Trust.
• The building of a new monastery at Salleri was achieved by the Trust matching money raised by local people, mainly by those who now live and work in Kathmandu.
• Isolated communities are helped to re-build washed away bridges and tracks; drinking water systems have been constructed.
• HM Government has been encouraged to create National Parks and has been advised on their management.
• Sherpas trained with support from the Trust are wardens of Nepal’s National Parks.
• Above all, the Sherpas are being helped to overcome some of the harshness of their environment and to work for a better future, whilst retaining their independence.

I’ve reached my target! - Well actually I’ve exceeded it having raised £2,450! Everyone’s been so generous and supportive. I really thought it would be very difficult to get the money and convince people to donate but it was actually much easier than I thought.

I raised the money through a combination of writing letters and pestering everyone knew to help out. I visited my old school and spoke to past teachers who were interested in supporting me, and the head teacher told me to put an advert in the school newsletter to spread the word. I also put a post in my synagogue newsletter about the Everest base camp challenge. The bag packing at M&S was successful, and before I knew it, my target had been reached!

I had planned to phone up some big supermarkets in Leeds to organise sponsored carwashes, put on a few fundraising concerts and dinner parties, and I also wanted to do some pub crawls, collecting in each pub along the way. However, by the time I got round to thinking about doing these events, it wasn’t necessary!

One of the easiest fundraising activities I did was busking. In February, I played a double flute concerto from memory in Leeds town hall. The concerto is very showy, and the other flautist I did it with happened to be down in London one weekend. We’d talked about busking for some time and we thought this would be a perfect opportunity. Over that weekend we went to some bustling markets around the area I live in London. We spent one morning making a big, eye-catching poster, explaining what the money would be going towards. The weather was fantastic and there were so many people sitting outside pubs listening to us play.

We played the concerto over and over again (it’s about 25 minutes long), people listening would walk past and not realise that we’d been playing the same piece for the last hour! In just under two hours we’d raised £40!

Fundraising’s going quite well. I’ve got a couple of weeks until the deadline and just got around £500 to make until I reach the total!

If any one fancies contributing to this fabulous cause just go to www.justgiving.com/rosannaterberg and click on ‘sponsor me now’ to donate online.

When we were told we had to wait until 2 o’clock for our ‘shift’ at Bag Packing we didn’t know what to do. With four hours to kill, some members of the group couldn’t be bothered to wait around, so I didn’t get a chance to meet them properly, but three others from the group stuck around with me - eager to do some fundraising!

We had a small bonding session over a breakfast bagel and then we decided that instead of wasting time and money eating, we would go around the shops, restaurants and cafes to see if anyone would donate. (These places are privately owned, so with the letter of authorisation from Childreach, which luckily I had on me, I could ask permission from the mangers to collect on the premises from their customers.)

 At first, I found this quite daunting and slightly embarrassing, especially after rejections from many managers, however, my confidence soon picked up and I think that being bubbly  enticed people to want to help us. I also discovered that if I said something like: ‘Would you like to donate to Childreach International to help kids in Africa and Asia…?’ barely anyone gave anything, but If I started with: ‘I’m climbing to Mount Everest base camp to help raise money for Childreach…’ then 80% of the time, people would give money!  

I got donations from many different people – cafe staff, shop staff, jewellers…the list goes on.  The majority of the donations were small change, but one woman gave me £5 and another cafe emptied their tips jar into my bucket! Most cafe owners (understandably) didn’t let us collect in their cafes, but one cafe manager told me I could stand outside his cafe and pester his customers as they came and went! This was very effective!

By the time our slot had come for Bag Packing, we were already exhausted, but it was well worth the wait. It was a fun experience and I met so many interesting people and had some very random conversations!

 Rosanna

We were told to meet outside M&S at 10.30 sharp, but I have terrible punctuality. So, as per usual, I was slightly late to meet the group (despite running frantically down the street to try to make it on time!). Once there, I couldn’t see anyone standing outside wearing the yellow Childreach t-shirt and as I didn’t know who anyone was, I couldn’t look for any familiar faces.

I was getting pretty excited about the prospect of meeting some of the group I’d be going to Everest with, and also going to do bag packing at M&S and raise some more money!

I eventually found a large group of Childreach volunteers by the tills in the supermarket but I soon found out that they were from a different expedition – these were the ‘c limb Kilimanjaro’ lot and none of them knew anything about the volunteers I was meant to be with. After a bit more searching and confusion, I found my group. It turned out that they had been waiting outside the other entrance all along!

There had been a big mix up and instead of just our group from Leeds having the entire bag packing slot at M&S as expected, 20 other volunteers from York had turned up and bagged the tills! We were pretty peeved! The team leaders decided on a compromise –both groups would have an equal four hour slot for the bag packing.

Most people at the tills would donate between 50p and £1 and were grateful for the help with packing their bags. There were the odd few who would let you pack their hefty load of shopping, smile sweetly at you and then walk off without donating a single penny!!

I didn’t stop moving for over 9 hours that day, and by the end of it, my feet felt as though they had swollen over twice their normal size. I was so relieved when I finally got to sit down at the end of the day and I was pretty excited about counting the money I had got! I was told that on average volunteers usually raise £80-£100, but I had managed to collect £141!!! So although tiring and hard work, and sometimes fairly demoralizing – it was definitely worth it!

 Rosanna

 

To go on the Everest Base Camp expedition I have to raise £2200 for the charity by May 15th. So far, through sponsorship from close friends and family, and regular busking (being a musician!), I have raised just over half the amount I need. But with another £1000 still to go, and under a month left to get it, I’m getting quite nervous about meeting my target!! I’m going to do a number of fundraising activities to help me reach the amount I need!

The charity - Childreach International - helps children in countries such as Tanzania, Uganda, India and Nepal. All of their schemes are run to achieve ‘sustainable development’ and involve projects including community led education centres, sanitation, health camps for cut-off communities and clean water provision.

On my trip I will be visiting some of these projects in Nepal and meeting some of the children and communities we will be helping. We’ll even be delivering medical supplies to the community run hospitals in the Khumbu region of the Himalayas.

I’ve got a few things lined up to help on the money front: tomorrow, I’m going bag packing at Marks and Spencer’s which should be an interesting experience. I’m doing it with several others from the Everest group which is great as I haven’t met anyone from the group yet! Hopefully I’ll also go on a few pub collections – I’ve heard people can be very generous in pubs…

 

 

 

 

 

Rosanna