www.oakvillebeaver.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, August 12, 2010 · 16 Lawyer climbs Mt. Kilimanjaro for literacy By Dominik Kurek OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF A long-time Oakville resident has completed what he calls a physical challenge in climbing Africa's tallest mountain and helping raise $700,000 for a literacy program in the peak's country of Tanzania. "It's quite an experience, quite a challenge and I'm glad to have done it," Sean Weir said of the experience. Weir and 12 others, most of whom are lawyers like himself, climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro for the Canadian Organization for Development through Education (CODE)'s Summit of Literacy fundraising program. The group raised $178,000 in donations from friends, relatives, clients and colleagues. That money is also being matched four to one, by the federal government's Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), making the total just over $700,000. "(The money) represents a little more than the project's annual budget in Tanzania. So we made a big, big impact," he said. "It has a huge impact on improving literacy in the Tanzanian school system." CODE, a Canadian charity since 1959, supports literacy programs in under developed nations in Africa and the Caribbean. The money raised by Weir's group will be spent entirely on programs in Tanzania. Weir formerly served as a Town of Oakville councillor, Oakville Hydro board chair and Oakville hospital board member. Currently he's the national managing partner and CEO for Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (BLG). The team consisted of five BLG lawyers and eight other individuals, mostly lawyers also. The climb was organized by Weir's partner, Chris Bredt. "Chris Bredt was the former chair of the CODE board so he came up with the idea of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro for charity, for CODE, in 2006. He had a smaller group that did it then and he decided to do it again," Weir said of how the climb was originally organized. "I was interested the last time, both for "You start off in a rainforest and then you move into a sort-of scrub forest, then a moor land. And when you start to get higher there's absolutely no vegetation. It's just rock and lava flow." n Sean Weir charity and the climb as a personal challenge." Furthermore, BLG also has a literacy program called BLG Reads to Kids. "We support literacy amongst children in inner-city schools where reading isn't the usual thing that happens in the family," Weir said. "We donate books. We have over 400 volunteers from the firm go out and read in schools. So the CODE thing was kind of a fit with BLG's commitment to literacy amongst children." And so, when a climb was organized again this year, Weir signed up for it. The mountain is the fourth tallest free-standing mountain in the world, with a peak of 5,882 metres from its base. The climb took nine days, seven to go up and two to come down. Each day consisted of climbing two to five miles, from 6 a.m. for about eight or nine hours per day. "The nice thing is you don't have to be a technical climber to do it, you don't have to get roped up to go off cliffs. There are some fairly steep portions but it would be a very tough hike for most people. It's a pretty big physical challenge," he said. Despite the challenge, the end result is worth it as a climber gets an incredible view from the mountain. "It's fantastic," he said. "You can see for miles. After about your third day, every day you're above clouds. You wake up in the morning and the clouds are below you. And the clouds around Helping you build some of the best things in life... right in your own backyard. , FULL LANDSCAPE DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION , EXISTING POOL RENOVATIONS Call us now to book an appointment to explore the options. POOLS FOR HOME DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION 905.319.7502 w w w. p o o l s f o r h o m e . c o m Kilimanjaro are usually around the mountain in the first part of the day and in the late afternoon they always clear out. It's fantastic at night because you're above the clouds. It's very clear, there's no light pollution so you have a fantastic view of the stars, the Milky Way, and it's really something to see." As the climbers get higher and higher, the lack of oxygen starts to affect them. "It hits everybody a little differently, some people are short of breath, some people have nausea, headaches, have difficulty sleeping, or you lose your appetite. So there's a lot of things that hit everybody to a greater or lesser degree," he said. "I was pretty fortunate. The main thing for me was fatigue, just being tired on the climb. Twelve of the 13 of us made it to the summit. For one guy, the guides turned him back around the 18,000-foot mark saying his oxygen levels were too low." An important aspect of the climb is acclimatizing. The climbers only trekked three to four hours the first day, and then more and more after that. On the last day, the summit day, the climbers did 13 hours of hiking to get to the peak and then return to base for the night. "The guides really like to pace you," Weir said. "In Swahili they like to say `poli, poli', which means slow, slow." There is also a great climate and temperature change on the mountain. "It's quite pleasant in Tanzania at the base of the mountain. It would be 22, 23 degrees and no humidity so it was very pleasant," Weir said. But things change on the mountain. "You start off in a rainforest and then you move into a sort-of scrub forest, then a moor land. And when you start to get higher there's absolutely no vegetation. It's just rock and lava flow." The temperature also drops very quickly on the mountain. In the daytime the weather is relatively warm, with a jacket and a sweater, but the nights were around 20 degrees Celsius with a strong, cold wind blowing. To help the travelers the group had four high-altitude guides and 51 porters carrying their items. They carried items such as tents, sleeping bags, sleeping mattresses, food, garbage, mess tents and more. Each climber carried approximately 15 kilograms of their own things as well. The money that goes to CODE pays authors to write and to publish the books in a nation's language and then to distribute the books to the schools. Furthermore, CODE trains teachers, who have very rudimentary education themselves, to be able to provide literacy programs to the students.