Autism team summits Kilimanjaro
2009-11-30 16:12
Cape Town - "If you want to walk fast, walk alone; if you want to walk far, walk together" is how one Tweeter put it on the "Putting Autism on Top - Kilimanjaro" team's Twitter site.
With the successful accomplishment on Thursday, of having summited the appropriately titled Uhuru ("freedom") Peak on Tanzania's 5 895-metre Mount Kilimanjaro at 08h15 South African time, the team has achieved their mission of raising awareness towards "putting Autism on the top of every South African's priority list, due to the global epidemic in diagnosis", as Autism Western Cape Executive Director Gerhard Pieterse (aka "Jail4Bail") puts it.
The team took the most difficult summit route in what team leader Sean Wisedale, seasoned summiter of many peaks including Mount Everest, describes as the worst weather he has ever experienced on Mount Kilimanjaro.
Appropriately, the summit, with the aim of putting autism on people's priority lists, was achieved exactly one week ahead of the United Nations declared International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
They literally pulled and carried one another to make it to the top as a team. Moreover, Franklin Pedro, a 59-year-old grandfather, reached the summit despite being physically ill all the way to the top.
William Fick was unable to make the last few hours due to a virus and so unfortunately he was sent back down ahead of his fellow team members.
'Lots of tears and man hugs'
Blogging the experience on www.zoopy.com/awckilimanjaro, Pieterse notes that "this has by far been the most challenging physical and emotional thing I have ever done. What I expected it to be, quantify 10 million times".
Typical entries include: "Cold and icy. Still struggling to breathe" and "AMS setting in, nausea and headaches - feeling very sick".
Then, victoriously, Pieterse writes of the summit itself: "Everyone to summit except William. Hard night but we got there by pushing and carrying one another, a VERY hard night but we got there and 7 successful, exhausted summiteers proudly held the Autism Western Cape flag at the summit.
"Lots of tears and man hugs at Stella Point and Uhuru Peak."
In achieving the climb, Autism Western Cape makes history by being the first African organisation to put autism on top of Mount Kilimanjaro - the world's highest freestanding mountain.
'Social issue across the globe'
The team comprised of team leader Sean Wisedale, from Durban, Gerhard Pieterse, Executive Director Autism Western Cape, and Neil Stewart, Dennis Cupido, Paul McAvoy, Franklin Pedro, Donovan Jacobs, Sean Hector, William Fick, all from Cape Town.
The "Putting Autism on Top - Kilimanjaro" campaign's primary objective was to raise meaningful awareness of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in South Africa and across the continent, as well as to raise R1m for the sustainability of Autism Western Cape's current service provision and the development of additional services.
"Autism is increasingly becoming a social issue across the globe and in South Africa. More children will be diagnosed with autism this year than with diabetes, cancer and HIV/Aids combined, hence the identification and treatment of autism has reached critical levels," says Pieterse, who has a child living with autism.
The summit was symbolic of the team's successful "summiting" of seemingly insurmountable challenges on Mount Kilimanjaro. The summiters mainly comprising parents, grandparents and family members of autistic children.