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Climb for Life

shmalec

4-Jun-2004
2:21:08 PM

G'day Dudes and Dudettes,

For the last year a small bunch of local Melbourne climbers have been setting up a climbing based charity. It is called Climb for Life and we have run 2 programmes in the last year.

It is targeted at young people in their mid to late teens who have come from troubled or disadvantaged backgrounds. The participants from the last two programmes have come from the Lighthouse Foundation and Reach. Each programme runs over 3 weeks and involves 2 indoor sessions followed by an outdoor weekend of climbing, abseiling and camping. A month later we have a pizza, photo, video night with participants.

You are all climbers, so you all understand the personal development benefits that these sort of activities can bring young people. They are immense and the success of the first to programmes have shown this.

We fund all this on donations, both private and corporate. However, we have only short terms sponsors and are actively looking for any opportunities to fund our programmes. So if you have any suggestions, maybe the company you work for has a philanthropic programme of some sort, or you have contacts who may be able to donate equipment, please get in touch.

Climb for Life will be officially launched with a promotional abseil down the well known tiled façade of Federation Square. It will happen this coming Monday at 1030am with a decent (hopefully) crowd of media there. Myself and another volunteer Gina Bertsch will both be abseiling either side of a 10m Climb for Life banner into the central plaza.

Feel free to come along and show your support.

Alec McKaskill
info@climbforlife.org
http://www.climbforlife.org

Rupert

4-Jun-2004
2:24:08 PM

Fantastic to hear its officially up and running Alec. Congrats to you, Tony and all the others for making it happen. Good one.

shmalec

4-Jun-2004
2:35:38 PM

Also

CLIMB FOR LIFE are showing Joe Simpson’s TOUCHING THE VOID at a closed session at the NOVA CINEMA (Lygon St) as a fund raiser on Tuesday 29th of June. The multi award winning book is legendary and the movie sounds fantastic. Go to the Touching the Void forum here if you want to read feedback from those that have seen advance copies.

Tickets to Touching the Void are available for advance purchase by contacting Climb for Life directly. Tichets are $15 each and you can send a cheque or your credit card details (visa, mastercard, bankcard) to

Climb for Life
info@climbforlife.org or
PO Box 3080
Pahran East
Vic 3181

Please state how many tickets you would like and whether you would like us to post them to you or pick them up at the door.

Hope to see many of you there. Alec.

PS. Thanks Rupert - your logos been getting a bit of a workout lately. :)

nmonteith

4-Jun-2004
3:17:04 PM

I saw a video that Marcel Geleen made for Climb for Life. The kids looked like they were having a great time at the Sundial and Bundaleer. Its always great seeing people enjoy themselves experianceing new things and workign togetehr as a group. I hope the charity sponsorship goes well!

shmalec

29-May-2006
6:48:36 PM

Well, it’s been a while since I last posted here about Climb for Life. So here's a bit of an update. Climb for Life is still alive and well. We are still running climbing based programmes for young people twice a year. So far, since inception, we have taken groups from Lighthouse Foundation, Reach, Western Young Peoples Independent Network, Sudanese Australian Integrated Learning Program, Inner Eastern Local Learning and Employment Network, SPAUMAY, The Victorian Foundation for the Survivors of Torture and Good Shepherd.

All programmes are fully funded by Climb for Life through donations and fund raising. There are typically about 15 young people from disadvantaged bagrounds on each programme and about half a dozen adult climber role models. Each involves two indoor climbing sessions and a climbing camp in the Grampians. We have had strong support from Cliffhanger Climbing Gym and Adventure YMCA in Ballarat. Cliffhanger donate the two indoor climbing sessions for each programme free of charge! The outdoor climbing instruction is run by Adventure YMCA who have recently agreed to donate camping and cooking equipment for each event.

Each programme is always different from the last depending on the young people who come along. We usually have two different groups, so everyone gets to meet a whole bunch of new people, often with very different cultural backgrounds. They are very rewarding for both volunteers and participants.

This is a local Victorian thing. We are always looking for new volunteers, ways to raise funds or reduce our costs. If you have any good ideas please get in touch. There are many ways of making a contribution. Maybe you would like to volunteer as an adult role model on trips or behind the scenes. Maybe you run climbing trips for a job and would like to help in that way.

You can find us on the web at www.climbforlife.org or email info@climbforlife.org.

Regards Alec.

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