Peak of achievement
21/12/2007
An adventurous water worker will be on a high this Christmas for charity.
The customer advisor, who works for Northumbrian Water which serves 2.6 million people from Berwick upon Tweed to North Yorkshire and across to the Pennines, is to climb Africa’s highest peak.
Hazel Burlison, who is from Esh Winning, Durham, is to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with her husband Glyn and is hoping to raise vital funds for the water company’s adopted charity, WaterAid.
The life-saving charity works in 17 countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific region, including Tanzania, to enable the world’s poorest people to access clean, safe water, effective sanitation and hygiene education.
“WaterAid is a really good charity,” said Hazel. “In this country, we tend to take excellent quality tap water for granted. It’s so easy to turn on a tap and not realise that more than one billion people don’t have access to clean water. I spent 18 months living and working in South Africa, and I’ve seen what it’s like to live in rural areas. People – and it’s mostly women and children – have to walk for miles in the searing heat to get water.”
Hazel, who has always wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, celebrates her fortieth birthday next year and wanted to do something big to mark the occasion. She is no stranger to adventurous activities in aid of good causes, having swum in a shark tank and walked on hot coals for charity.
But giant Mount Kilimanjaro, which rises to 5,895 metres (19,340 ft), represents her biggest challenge yet! She and husband Glyn have been in training for a year and are confidently looking forward to the climb itself. But the high altitude could be a problem and the temperature at night can drop to -20°C.
The two charity climbers fly out to Africa on Christmas Eve and arrive at Kilimanjaro on Christmas Day. The charity climb itself starts on Boxing Day, with four days of slow ascent to acclimatise to the altitude, followed by an arduous fifth day starting at midnight to reach the crater rim before sunrise. Hazel expects to feel quite emotional when she reaches the summit and sees the spectacular panorama.
Hazel and Glyn are topping off their trip with a couple of days’ well earned rest and relaxation in Zanzibar before heading back home.
Anyone wishing to sponsor Hazel’s climb and help give people in the developing world a future should log onto www.justgiving.com/hazelburlison.
WaterAid facts
• Over one billion people in the world don’t have access to clean, safe water - this is roughly one sixth of the world’s population.
• 2.6 billion people don’t have anywhere safe and hygienic to go to the toilet - this is roughly two fifths of the world’s population.
• 5000 children die every day from diarrhoeal diseases caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation, such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery.
• WaterAid is an international charity dedicated to helping people escape the stranglehold of poverty and disease caused by living without clean, safe water and effective sanitation.
• WaterAid works by helping local organisations set up low cost, sustainable projects using appropriate technology that can be managed by the community itself.
• WaterAid works in 17 countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific region. These are Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Madagascar, Malawi, Ghana, Nigeria, Timor L’este and Papua New Guinea.
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For more information contact Alison Mosquera on 0191 301 6722.