Launch of the Trek4Mandela Kilimanjaro Challenge 2015

Today, 17 February 2015, saw the launch of the fourth annual Trek4Mandela Kilimanjaro Challenge.

This year the initiative aims to raise enough funds to ensure that 270 000 girl children will not miss a day of school.

Founded in 2012 by Richard Mabaso, the concept of Trek4Mandela and Caring4Girls was sparked by a conversation between his mother and niece that he overheard, about his niece’s first menstrual cycle.

Mabaso thought to himself that something had to be done to ensure that talks surrounding things such as puberty and menstrual cycles took place before the event actually occurred.

Mabaso, who had always wanted to climb Kilimanjaro, now had even more reason: he not only wanted to say that he had summited the mountain, but he also wanted to climb it in the name of Mandela Day and to raise funds to purchase sanitary pads for girls in rural areas.

“I never ever in my wildest dreams anticipated the initiative becoming this big. It has been an amazing journey but with lots of challenges, especially trying to tap into the CSI space, which is oversubscribed in South Africa. What we managed to do innovatively was to bring in the Kilimanjaro – whereby we can give people something exciting, but at the same time doing good,” says Mabaso.

“One of the things that Graca Machel said to us at the send-off last year was that we should continue doing this, knowing and understanding one thing and one thing only: that we are standing on the shoulders of giants – the Madibas, the Tambos, the Sisulus and all the struggle heroes who have paved the way for us to be able to have the freedom to create new ideas, and execute those ideas in the name of doing good and using them – struggle heroes as our mirrors,” adds Mabaso.

Trek4Mandela is carried out in support of Caring4Girls, an initiative also established by Mabaso, that supports school girls with sanitary towels, and related puberty and adolescence awareness – elements that are of great importance as research has shown that a girl could miss up to 50 days of school per year due to menstrual challenges.

Mabaso, who will be leading the trek with partner and South African adventurer Sibusiso Vilane, continues: “I guarantee that I will summit that mountain, and on behalf of the climbers we will make sure that the target of 270 000 girls is reached.”

Sello Hatang, Chief Executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, who will also be climbing Kilimanjaro, says: “The fact that you are all here says that we care about these girl children and their futures.

“It’s important that we note how many peoples’ lives have been touched thus far and how we want to quadruple that number.

“We have to ensure that our girls get the maximum support they can in order to be able to go to school. We cannot afford to have people who failed to go to school because of a need that is so basic, that we could have fulfilled,” adds Hatang.

Luvuyo Mandela, great-grandson of the late Nelson Mandela, will also join the climb. He says: "It’s quite poignant that this initiative was started by a man, as we need to change the mindset that people have about women and the issues they go through.”

Luvuyo Mandela adds: "I would like to applaud Richard for getting the initiative to this point, and also want to encourage more young men to stand up for women and the issues they face.”

The climb up Kilimanjaro will summit on 18 July 2015, which is Nelson Mandela International Day. There will be 27 climbers, one for each year that Madiba was in prison. Each climber is aiming to raise at least R1.5-million for Caring4Girls.

Morning Live presenter Leanne Manas and husband Marc Menelaou will also be tackling Kilimanjaro. Says Manas: “Being born in Africa comes with responsibility. It is my responsibility to do what I can for the girls in South Africa. In this day and age there shouldn’t be anyone who’s missing school because of a period; it is the most natural process that girls go through, and yet it is still frowned upon."

Nodumo Novuka, a representative of Lil-lets, a founding sponsor of the initiative, says: “We are honoured to be a part of this initiative and we hope it inspires more people to live up to the ethos of Mandela Day, every day.

“Lil-lets understands what it means to be a woman in South Africa, including the issues they go through when experiencing periods. So far we have donated sanitary products worth R2-million and this year we are pledging to donate R2.5-million worth of stock towards the Trek4Mandela initiative.”