Women take on Kilimanjaro for charity

A WOMAN from Henley is hoping to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to help the health of the country’s people.

Catherine English, of Cromwell Road, and three other women will be raising money for SafePoint, a charity that is trying to start a safe injection healthcare programme by donating two million sterile disposable syringes.

The charity was founded by Marc Koska, who is married to one of the other women taking part and does business with Mrs English’s husband Nick, a Bremont watchmaker.

Mrs English said she jumped at the chance to become involved in the climb later this month when another woman dropped out. She said: “As well as climbing the mountain, we will be visiting schools, orphanages and hospitals to educate children, nurses and teachers in safe and sterile injections.

“Unsafe injections can lead to HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and malaria and the Tanzania campaign aims to ease the burden of these diseases.

“A syringe costs just 7p. The simple message is ‘one injection — one syringe’.”

Mrs English, who has three children, Elodie, three, and twins Euan and Capucine, five, who attend Trinity school in Henley, will be climbing with Anna Koska, Clare Beale and Nicoletta Lacobacci, all from East Sussex. She has been training five or six times a week and meeting the other women once a month to do a big climb or walk.

She said: “We were advised to start working on our upper leg strength, back strength and core stability. We’ve been walking and cycling up hills and generally bulking up our legs.”

The women hope to raise between £10,000 and £20,000 for the K1 syringes, which were invented by Mr Koska.

One way of raising money is by “selling” flags to be taken to the top of the 19,334ft volanic mountain and photographed with the quartet.

To make a donation, visit http://www.justgiving.com/TheClimb-Tanzania2010

Taken from the Henley Standard

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See also "Local charity SafePoint to scale dizzy heights in October"
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Keep up with Marc and SafePoint on Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube and Facebook

Join the SafePoint team online and receive all of Marc’s updates as and when they happen.

He and his colleagues are busily tweeting at twitter.com/marckoska and twitter.com/safepointtrust, plus two recently launched SafePoint video channels on Vimeo and YouTube. These are yet more outlets for all of Safepoint's powerful video footage (including a shocking undercover film of needle re-use captured in hospitals) and will continually evolve, so make sure you visit regularly.

If Facebook is more your thing, then connect with Marc here and with SafePoint here.

Life-saving Disposable Syringe Makes a Difference to Overseas Healthcare

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Sectors: Healthcare & Medical

Company Name: Star Syringe

Based in East Sussex, Star Syringe is a medical innovation company that aims to protect people through better, low-cost, sustainably produced, basic healthcare equipment. Their non-reusable syringe K1 AD is extremely cheap and, because it has been designed so that it cannot be re-used, has played a significant role in the fight against the spread of HIV and other diseases in some of the world’s poorest countries.

The syringes are simple to produce and licensed to manufacturers in countries all over the world, including Indonesia and Nigeria.

As a company focused exclusively on export markets where the need for their products is greatest, market intelligence is crucial. Star Syringe has accumulated considerable knowledge about its business, but even experienced exporters can benefit from outside assistance.

In this case, assistance came from Carolyn Bentley and Les Plant, International Trade Advisers with UK Trade & Investment’s (UKTI) South East. Les’ advice, in particular, is based on wide experience, giving Star Syringe the dual benefit of a trade sector adviser who has specialist knowledge of the healthcare industry from his days in private business.

Marc Koska reports on Star Syringe's success

Star Syringe has also taken advantage of UKTI services such as Overseas Market Introduction Service (OMIS) , which has dovetailed with their own market knowledge. As company founder and director Marc Koska said:

"In the case of Ghana, for which we commissioned an OMIS report, although this was not primary intelligence, it was invaluable in backing up our own market information and confirming courses of action and the correct market approach."

Marc Koska, Director, Star Syringe

On 15 May this year, Star Syringe staged an event supported by UKTI South East, among others, to celebrate the manufacture of one billion K1 AD syringes and the saving of up to five million lives.

In 2006, the company received a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the International Trade category, and was recognised for the development of the K1 with the International Trade Award for Innovation in the 2007 “International Trade Today” awards.

Excerpted from Life-saving Disposable Syringe Makes a Difference to Overseas Healthcare
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