In Mandela's footsteps
Taking on Kilimanjaro to assist young girls
THE CENTENARY edition of Trek4Mandela is literally preparing for take-off. Fifty climbers, support staff and media leave OR Tambo International Airport on Thursday July 12 for Dar es Salaam, and from there go to Kilimanjaro International Airport to launch a bid to summit Africa’s highest peak on July 18 – what would have been Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday.
It’s a high point in a seven-year journey for Richard Mabaso, the founder of the Imbumba Foundation which runs Trek4Mandela and Caring4Girls, the two interlinked charities with one aim – to ensure that menstruation can never be an excuse for girls to miss school.
Mabaso conceived the idea of raising awareness for the campaign by climbing Kilimanjaro on Mandela’s birthday every year. On July 18, 2012, he did it with his friend and long-time collaborator, Everest hero Sibusiso Vilane.
Vilane will be leading this year’s expedition, and the one on Women’s Day on August 9, which Trek4Mandela has organised to meet the demand among first-time climbers who want to tick their bucket list and do something worthwhile at the same time.
Mabaso has set himself a target of leading 100 climbers to Kilimanjaro’s Uhuru Peak by July next year – by the end of August, if all goes well, he will have managed to get 67 to the top, another important number on the Mandela calendar.
It’s a big group that will leave for Tanzania next month, the biggest yet, which is why the training has been even longer and tougher than in previous years – with three mandatory local hikes in Suikerbosrand outside Heidelberg and three trips to the picturesque, though gruelling, Monk’s Cowl nature reserve in the Drakensberg.
“We wanted the climbers to get to know each other. Climbing Kilimanjaro is not only about individual effort, but team spirit too, practising ubuntu – that we are because of each other,” Mabaso says.
The overarching drive though is always about the girls. Each climber – by virtue of their climb – will support 100 schoolgirls for an entire year, but four of the 2018 class of climbers have already far exceeded that target.
“Vickey Ganesh, known as ‘Super Vic’ to the group, was the first to raise and beat R100 000, Mags Natasen was second, followed by ‘Queen D’ Dikeledi Dlwati and Angela Yeung. They did this using their networks and getting donations from their friends,” says Mabaso.
“It’s always inspiring that they’re not just ticking a bucket list but making a real difference to the lives of girls… Each one of them will support 1 000 girls for the whole of next year because of what they have raised.”
To reward the four, Mabaso held outreach events at the schools of their choice.
For Ganesh it was back in KwaZuluNatal, where he grew up, while Dlwati had a presentation of sanitary pads at a school in Kroonstad and another in Gauteng. Yeung returned to Botshabelo outside Bloemfontein – where she had spent her first years as a school child, surprising climbers and staff alike with her command of seSotho.
Natasen’s event will be held at a deserving school in northern KwaZulu-Natal before the group departs for Kilimanjaro.
“It was important to do this,” explains Mabaso, “to reward these climbers who were the first to achieve their targets and to inspire the others. We will go back after Kili to these schools with these climbers, but the fact that they have gone there first will make the climb even more special because the purpose has now become personal, they’ve met the recipients and they will meet them again at the bigger distribution.”
It’s not just the climbers who contribute. There are corporate partners too who sponsor entire schools for a year, but the single biggest collector of sanitary pads without any doubt is the Dis-Chem Foundation.
The foundation has been running its “Million Comforts” campaign since Mabaso first approached Dis-Chem chief executive Lynette Saltzman in 2015. The aim then was to get customers at the nationwide pharmacy group to donate a million packs of sanitary pads. The drive exceeded everyone’s expectations. This year more than two million packs have been donated in the first week-and-a-half of the campaign, which runs until the end of July.
The climbers will be going out to Dischem stores across the country this weekend to encourage shoppers to donate sanitary pads. “We’ve helped more than 360 000 girls in over 450 schools since we began the project,” says Mabaso.
“The girls receive pads for a year, either quarterly, three times a year or twice, depending on the school and prospective sponsors. The first time we do the distribution, we educate the girls through our puberty training facilitator, Phumzile Magudulela, and hold workshops to educate the boys.
“We’re looking for corporate sponsors to come in and adopt schools through their corporate social investment budgets in other provinces because some of our greatest problems are logistical – actually getting the pads to outlying areas where
“WE’VE HELPED MORE THAN 360 000 GIRLS IN OVER 450 SCHOOLS… SOME PEOPLE EVEN TAKE THEIR LAST R10 TO DONATE A PACK OF SANITARY PADS
we are not based. We continue to remind people that Trek4Mandela is an event to encourage them to be like Madiba, to think of others. To those who want to help, but can’t get hold of us, we say ‘go and buy pads and donate them to your local school’.
“Each one of us can do our little bit to help create a better, more caring world, by ensuring that even one girl has the chance to finish her school career without missing a day because of the shame associated with not being able to properly manage her monthly period. I’m always humbled and inspired by the response.
“Some people even take their last R10 to donate a single pack, but if that helps a single girl, then it has all been worth it.”
If you would like to know more about Trek4Mandela or donate towards Caring4Girls, please contact Nkateko Mabale at nkateko@imbumbafoundation.org or call: +27 (0) 11 883 0379 or +27 662 142 520.