Heartwarming

[newcastle]

Egyptian adventurer Galal Zekri Chatila has set out on his latest and boldest journey — to climb the highest peak on each continent and plant the Egyptian flag, with the aim of raising funds for grass-roorts charity projects.

The new venture, named Operation Summit, is an expedition-based fundraising effort that aims to collect donations from individuals and corporations who want their names or logos on the flags that reach the top.

The first stop is Africa's tallest mountain, the 5,895-meter Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. The climb starts on July 22nd, and Chatila expects to reach the summit on July 28th. The donations from that particular climb will go toward building 600 new roofs for people in basic housing in Upper Egypt. Before Operation Summit if finished, Chatila hopes to have completed seven peaks and helped with fundraising for several projects.

This is not the first outdoor challenge for Chatila. In 2015, he cycled solo around Egypt, covering a distance of about 7,000 km. But he is also good without wheels, having climbed a different mountain on his birthday for the past several years. And he will need to be in good shape if he hopes to tackle the highest of them all — Mount Everest in the Himalayas, which stands at 8,848 meters.

“After cycling all over Egypt by myself, I realized that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life: to be free, and live my life to its fullest," says Chatila. "I want to be out there, making a good impact on society ... encouraging people who follow my trips to get out of their comfort zones, and start their own adventures."

The aim of the African part of the fundraising effort is to raise enough money to build 600 roofs in Upper Egypt. Chatila says that many people are living without a proper roof, meaning they don't have proper protection from the elements, particularly in cold and rainy weather.

“Thousands and thousands of Egyptians are living without a good shelter to protect them from the rainy weather during winter. We want to help them by doing what we can.”

The cost of a roof is between LE1,000 and LE1,500, and the donations are collected through the Healthy Egyptians NGO along with the manpower of Yala Nebda2, ensuring that everything is legal and transparent.

So far, the project has already raised enough money for 40 roofs, and all the sponsors will be listed on the flag that Chatila takes to the top of Kilimanjaro, the leg named “Top of Africa”.

“My main aim through mountaineering will be to fundraise for charity. I am a firm believer that big companies will always be eager to put their name on the top of the seven summits,” Chatila sa.

Corporate sponsors that have already made donations for the Kilimanjaro climb are dairy food manufacturer Juhayna and telecommunication system integrator and solution provider Alkan CIT. The media sponsor for the Top of Africa climb is Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Individuals and companies wanting their name or logo on the rooftop of Africa should visit www.facebook.com/opnsummit and leave a request.

http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/eg ... roofs-poor

[Horus]

To be honest Kilimanjaro is almost on the tourist route, every man and his dog have done it, so I doubt he will raise much in sponsorship good though his intentions are.

[newcastle]

To be honest Kilimanjaro is almost on the tourist route, every man and his dog have done it, so I doubt he will raise much in sponsorship good though his intentions are.

''to climb the highest peak on each continent"

No need to be so pessimistic.

[Horus]

Not being pessimistic, just stating a fact if he is after sponsership

[newcastle]

If he were just climbing Kilimanjaro - which is 'conquered' by 25,000 a year - I'd agree.

But to climb the highest peaks in five continents is an altogether rarer achievement.

I wish him every success. He's a credit to his country.

[Dusak]

I seem to remember that a climber scaled the worlds seven tallest peaks some years ago for charity. No matter how hard or easy the task, he is doing something that he obviously not just believes in, but enjoys. And the only benefactor are charities. Yes, I suppose you could argue that there could be a sales increase for the firms that are sponsoring this event, but that could be a good thing for future sponsorship deals. Its good to see a person getting off their arse and addressing problems they see around themselves to better the less well off instead of just sitting there and seeing nothing wrong.

[Horus]

While I don’t argue with the charitable sentiment of what he is doing, I do often question some of the motives behind such events. To undertake the challenge of climbing the highest peak on each continent will cost several tens of thousands of £ sterling to achieve, it is not just a case of climbing a mountain, you first need to get there. After that the support teams required to do some of this can be very expensive, even Kilimanjaro is usually undertaken as a guided climb (although not literally a climb) over several days. So unless he is paying all his own expenses then the sponsors or other donors are required to foot all of the costs of his venture as well as giving a large donation to his event, otherwise it will not make any money for anyone. It may well be a case that he actually does nothing more than doing something he personally wishes to do while asking others to foot the bill for his adventure. I would like to see some figures on what his sponsors have promised and how much money after expenses are taken out is predicted to go to charity, if it is not a decent amount then he would have been better just asking for the sponsors to donate everything to his charity as it would have more impact.

I know that some of you may think that I am being uncharitable, but like others I have seen this sort of personal sponsorship quite often generate very little in real terms. As an example some years ago several of us decided to climb the UK’s highest peaks in under 24 hours for our local hospital children’s ward. It cost nothing to do, one guy offered to drive us between climbs in his mini bus and we all chipped in for petrol and we stuck up some hand painted requests for donations and someone invited the local evening newspaper to take some pictures. Overall we made several thousands of pounds for the venture, but I also got to do something I wanted to do anyway, so I suppose my point is that we could all have been wearing printed logo T shirts and wearing free climbing boots and being ferried to and fro by a national bus company, but would we have raised any more money? Not a criticism of the person himself, just another take on it.

[newcastle]

Personally.....I would not question anyone's motives without knowing them or without evidence.

The point Horus makes about the proportion of donations eaten up in the expenses of the climbs is a valid one. I will try and see if I can get some clarification on the matter.

[Horus]

I will try and see if I can get some clarification on the matter.

Thanks Newcastle, I do stress that I am not knocking his good intentions, but rather the method of raising money which given the scale of the venture could well turn out to be a great trip of a lifetime for him, but paid for by others if the money raised is not of very high proportion to the expenses incurred.

In his own words: “After cycling all over Egypt by myself, I realized that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life: to be free, and live my life to its fullest,"
To me this speaks of a person who wants to do these things for their own gratification rather than as a charitable venture.

Just look at the following list and try to envisage the logistics and expense of such an undertaking:
Mount Everest, Nepal/China in Asia
Aconcagua, Argentina in South America
Mount McKinley, USA in North America
Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania in Africa
Mount Elbrus, Russia in Europe
Vinson Massif in Antarctica
Puncak Jaya, Indonesia that geographically is on the Australasian continental shelf, but politically could be defined as Mt Wilhelm (Papua New Guinea) or even Mt Kosciuszko if you define Australia itself as a continent.

Now if he has planned it properly and lets say that each continent has one or several airlines that will provide free air travel between continents and to the closest proximity to the mountain involved and then local transport is provided free of charge plus accommodation, food and all other services that he will need to support his venture then that would be a different kettle of fish. Even reaching Antarctica itself would be a mega challenge probably involving the Americans, let alone climbing its highest mountain. So I say again, a grandiose idea, but highly impractical as as fund raiser.

[newcastle]

Personally.....I would not question anyone's motives without knowing them or without evidence.

The point Horus makes about the proportion of donations eaten up in the expenses of the climbs is a valid one. I will try and see if I can get some clarification on the matter.

The answer I received from Operation Summit was : "the expenses of the climb itself are funded by Juhayna Zabado and Operation Summit. So all donations go directly to the building of the roofs! "

Not entirely sure how I read this. But if I were to give them 50 quid I'd assume this went entirely towards a roof.(And really, that is all that would matter to me as a donor).

Whether the substantial costs borne by Juhayna, and maybe other sponsors, would be better spent simply directed to roof building is arguable. but then I know, from my time in the City, that large companies are always being tapped for charitable donations and this kind of project is a way of sparking their interest (which might otherwise not exist) whilst gearing up the benefit to the charitable object via individual & corporate donations.

They will obviously have to find further substantial sponsorship to cover the costs of scaling peaks after Kilimanjaro (probably the least expensive climb)!