Johannesburg - The Caring4Girls charity has on Friday, challenged executives to summit Kilimanjaro to raise funds for disadvantaged women.
“We’re really excited about this initiative and will be eagerly watching and supporting the participants as they trek up the mountain – it’s an incredibly worthy cause and we’ll be rooting for their success, not only of the climb, but all their efforts to raise funds and awareness,” Justin Hume, Chief Marketing Officer for Samsung South Africa, said in a statement.
Caring4Girls is a charity that focuses on providing sanitary pads to young women from disadvantaged backgrounds, so they do not have to miss school because of their monthly menstrual cycle.
One of the ways in which the charity is raising funds and awareness is to challenge executives to summit Kilimanjaro, which at about 4,900 metres from its base and 5 895 metres above sea-level, is the highest mountain in Africa,
In addition to providing sanitary pads to young women across the nation, Caring4Girls said their aim was to create 100 bursaries to support 100 girls from specific schools and to adopt 100 schools per province to benefit from the project.
The charity’s research indicated that girls could miss up to 50 days of school a year due to menstrual-related challenges. UNICEF indicated that more educated women had a tendency to be healthier, work and earn more income, have fewer children and provide better health care and education to their children.
On 9 August, Sung Yoon, CEO & President Samsung Electronics Africa, will be joining the trek. Samsung had chosen to get involved and has chosen Phomolong Secondary School as one of the schools it would be supporting with the charity in this initiative and into the future.
“It is an honour to be able to participate in this highly important charitable campaign. The young women that are positively impacted by Caring 4 Girls are an integral part of South Africa’s future," Yoon said.
The goal of Caring4Girls is to also reach two million girls by the year 2020, providing monthly menstrual support and effective hygiene and health education.
Although the climb is now in its seventh year, Caring4Girls said the 2018 expedition was extra special as it celebrated what would have been Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday.
Two summit dates have been scheduled; 18 July to celebrate Mandela Day and 9 August to commemorate National Woman’s Day. Some 67 participants will ensure their effort makes a difference in a girl’s life.
The charity said as much as it was not a gentle walk up the mountain and every participant had had to undergo extensive training to ensure they were able to make the summit.
The 2018 expedition aimed to raise enough funds to ensure that 500 000 girl children would not miss a day of school and give much-needed accessibility to sanitary towels.
The target of the 2018 Trek Target was to raise funds to procure 6,000,000 packets of sanitary pads.
The 67 executives who would be joining the climb on both the summit dates would all be kitted out with a Samsung Gear Fit Pro2, so counting their steps, monitoring heart rate and capturing their personal bests in terms of activity would be a breeze.