Stan Andrews (left) and Marco du Plooy (right) with children from Pathways in Pretoria
Stan Andrews, a trans-tibial amputee from Johannesburg is set to scale Kilimanjaro from the 16th to the 22nd of September 2012. His friend and prosthetist, Marco du Plooy, will be joining him on the excursion - and will be climbing the mountain barefoot.
Earlier this year Stan Andrews won a place in the Goliath challenge, enabling him to finally live out one of his lifelong dreams - summiting Mount Kilimanjaro.
After winning the contest, he realised this would be a great platform to raise awareness for a cause close to his heart – as a person living a great life with a prosthetic, he is passionate about making people aware of the possibility of changing the lives of the many people, of all ages and races, living unfulfilled lives because they have poor prosthetics or none at all. Many of these people are unable to enjoy simple pleasures we take for granted like walking, exercising, performing household tasks or playing with their children.
By taking on this challenge, Stan hopes to demonstrate just how much someone with a physical disability can achieve with the aid of good prosthetics. He aims to take a stand for those who risen to the challenge of leading normal, prosperous lives despite their physical disabilities.
"I want to make a difference. I want to show the world that anything is possible, disability or not, it's your attitude that counts," said Andrews.
Andrews invited his long-time friend and prosthetist, Marco du Plooy, a husband and father of two from Pretoria, to join him on his excursion. Stan wanted Marco to see the impact that proper prosthetics have on someone’s life.
This expedition has allowed Marco a platform to raise funds for the Pathways-Pretoria, a learning facility for children with disabilities. Pathways-Pretoria is a non-profit organisation, initiated in August 2002 and co-founded by parents in their quest to find school accommodation for children with various disabilities. The school provides services to children with severe mental and physical disabilities, speech impairments, blindness and visual impairments, hearing impairments and autism.
"I decided immediately that I wanted to be a part of this expedition", said du Plooy. "I then also decided to climb barefoot, and in that way raise money for Pathways-Pretoria, an organisation that I feel very passionately about," he adds.
The rule is simple: no shoes or any foot protection may be worn for the whole duration of each day’s trail. Due to the sub-zero temperatures they expect on the days they summit the highest peak, it is a given that the use of shoes is unavoidable. However, Marco hopes that individuals and organisations will sponsor him for each day that he manages to climb without shoes - and all the money raised will go directly to Pathways-Pretoria.
Stan and Marco are currently hard at work preparing for the trip, so that they will both be in peak form when they start the climb. For more information, visit www.standwithstan.co.za
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