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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Local charity SafePoint to scale dizzy heights in October

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Training hard in the Ashdown Forest

Four brave mums from the Crowborough and Uckfield area are flying out to tackle the daunting challenge of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro this October to raise funds for the SafePoint Trust which is based in the heart of Ashdown Forest.

The SafePoint Trust is a charity set up to tackle the global problem of syringe re-use, which the World Health Organisation (WHO) credits with killing millions of otherwise healthy people each year. Unclean syringes are used repeatedly in surgeries and clinics in developing countries to administer vaccines and medicines. This is either to save costs, or because the doctor is unaware of the severe health implications this practice can have, as dirty needles can quickly and easily pass lethal diseases like Hepatitis and HIV.

The SafePoint Trust has single-handedly saved nearly 10 million lives through campaigning for safe injection practices in countries across the world, including India and Africa.

This climb will raise money to supply single-use needles to Tanzania, and will be attempted by Anna Koska, Clare Beale, Catherine English and Nicoletta Lacobacci. Good luck girls!

To find out more, or to make a gratefully received donation, please click here.

Taken from crowboroughpeople.co.uk, written by Rebecca_H

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See also "Women take on Kilimanjaro for charity"
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Marc Koska at Google Zeitgeist

'Google Zeitgeist 2010: Catalyst' by AlphachimpStudio (Peter Durand)

Source: Flickr.com (some rights reserved)

Marc spent an inspiring two days at Google Zeitgeist last month in Phoenix, Arizona.

He was invited to participate in an interesting panel discussion entitled, "Catalyst". Full-on discussions took place on: how some leaders are able to set off a chain reaction and how others can bring so much attention to new ideas and initiatives.

Zeitgeist invites the leading thinkers of our time to join together to explore ideas and debates on topics that influence not only the global economy, but also creativity, technology, leadership and human rights.

Here's Marc’s section on the panel:

Zeitgeist-US Catalyst from SafePoint Trust on Vimeo.
http://vimeo.com/15431465

Watch the full version here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4Mx7SeEwpM
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The Climb Tanzania 2010: our High Altitude Health Assessments

Dr Jack Kreindler at 76 Harley Street, offered to give us a specialised High Altitude Assessment session to see whether we're up to the climb, both aerobically and anaerobically.

76 Harley Street is the most incredible and unique set up geared towards every aspect of personal health possible. One arm of that is one specifically geared towards the research and betterment of human performance, which is where we come in.

We were briefed on key aspects of the ascent by Jack Kreindler and tested by Jim Pate. We all thoroughly enjoyed the experience (in as much as anybody can whilst sitting on a bike wired up, gagged and going nowhere!) The experience was both fascinating and hideous and ended with us feeling happily capable but ravenously hungry.

We all now have a much clearer picture of what to expect and are all working hard to develop thighs like a prop forward, and eating for England.. well Tanzania actually.

Jim Pate, with Clare, assessing Nicoletta's performance

Nicoletta, the Italian Dynamo!

Clare, before kick-off

Me, wired up and gagged, and ready to go!

Catherine, setting the pace!

We are all very grateful to Jack Kreindler and Jim Pate of 76 Harley Street for the enormous support they have given SafePoint's Climb Tanzania 2010. By putting us through an incredibly thorough health assessment, it has enabled us to properly prepare for this infamously gruelling climb. So a big thank you to everyone at 76 Harley Street.

Anna x

About 76 Harley Street

76 Harley Street was established to set new standards in personalised medical and dental specialty care, diagnostics, screening and enhanced recovery - to prognose, prevent or get the very best outcomes. Their expertise now extends into coaching, human performance sciences, life-support / survival skills and high altitude pursuits for health promotion.

http://www.76harleystreet.com
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Marc Koska's Mission

Author: Lukas Kubina

Marc Koska

Marc Koska OBE has worked tirelessly over the last 25 years on Global Healthcare. He invented an AD (Auto Disable) syringe called K1 that prevents reuse. Technically, a valve - which breaks after the single usage - is moulded in the plunger. This very easy and cheap modification makes an accidental or abusive reuse physically impossible. The product costs are at about 5 cents apiece - the average price of a normal syringe.

Marc and the K1 have been credited with saving in excess of Nine Million lives and his invention is licensed by 14 manufacturers around the developing world. All Marc's energy is now put into lobbying for legislation change with his charity The SafePoint Trust - delivering hard-hitting safe injection campaigns.

Now, the DLD friend is launching the LifeSaver campaign that is inviting all global AD syringe manufacturers to include the new LifeSaver logo and message "New Packet. Used Once. Safely Disposed" on all their packaging.The logo is distinctive and easily recognized, and will act as a unique guarantee of a safe injection.

For more information on Marc go to marckoska.com and watch his mission statement in the video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-bJpkvSo_k

What is DLD?

DLD is an inspiring community for the 21st century which features digital innovation, science and culture and brings together thought leaders, creators, entrepreneurs and investors from Europe, the Middle-East, the Americas and Asia.

DLD (Digital - Life - Design) is a three-day experience gathering 800 entrepreneurs, investors, philantropists, scientists, artists and creative minds from all over the world. With global diversity in attendees and an interdisciplinary perspective of digital, media, design, art, science, brands, consumers and society, the conference is known as the European forum for the "creative class".

Taken from DLD-Conference.com

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In case you didn't know...

Anna Koska

Dear all,

In case you didn't know, I'm due to fly out on 25th October to Tanzania.... to climb that big volcano they've got there!

I'm not doing it for fun (it's cold up there!); I'm actually doing it, along with three other women, in the name of SafePoint.

SafePoint is a charity that was set up with the purpose of educating the next generation in safe healthcare. This is done by delivering hard-hitting public awareness campaigns. We've done this to huge effect in India in 2008, resulting (in April 2009) with the Health Minister mandating the use of Auto Disable syringes throughout all government-run hospitals.

To date, Safepoint is credited with saving well over 9 million lives!

Clare Beale, Catherine English, Ginny Simpson and Anna Koska

Why Tanzania?

Tanzania is at the forefront of safe healthcare in Africa and is one of only two countries that has converted to Auto Disable syringes in the ECSA Region (Eastern, Central and Southern Africa). With their policy already in place, trained healthcare workers and a public information film (donated by SafePoint), they are ready to reduce country medical costs and ease the HIV / Hepatitis disease burden.

We're climbing this mountain to kick off Phase 1 of this new campaign. We'll be visiting schools, orphanages and hospitals to talk to children, teachers and nurses alike... getting the simple message across: "One injection - One syringe" and donating syringes to kickstart their participation.

Some facts and figures on unsafe healthcare:

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• Each and every year, due to unsafe injections, there are:

• 23,000 HIV Infections
• 1,000,000 Hepatitis C Infections
• 21,000,000 Hepatitis B Infections
• RESULTING IN 1,300,000 DEATHS EACH YEAR (Source: WHO World Health Organisation)
• Some 17 billion injections are given each year, and 7 billion of these are unsafe medical injections (Source: Hutin 2003)
• Malaria kills 1,000,000 - so this silent epidemic kills more people each year (Source: WHO World Health Organisation)
• In Africa 20 million medical injections contaminated with blood from a patient with HIV are administered every year (Source: Reid 2009)
• At least 50% of injections given were unsafe (Source: WHO World Health Organisation)
• A syringe is used on average 7 times in the developing world
• Every 24 seconds a child dies as a result of an unsafe injection

If you feel you'd like to support me in raising money for this campaign, I'd be delighted! Just click here: http://www.justgiving.com/TheClimb-Tanzania2010

Thank you so very much for your help on this,

Anna x

PS For more information, check out this short video that was made regarding Tanzania:

Before&After Tanzania from SafePoint Trust on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/12771304

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Ain't No Mountain High Enough!

4 mums climb Kilimanjaro to get 2m syringes donated to Tanzania

Clare Beale, Catherine English, Ginny Simpson and Anna Koska

Four brave mums are aiming high for SafePoint - they plan to climb Kilimanjaro at the end of October raising enough money to donate 2 Million AD syringes to Tanzania.

Marc Koska launched the Climb with the help of David Downard from Mountain Range Restaurants back in May and since then, offers of support have been overwhelming.

Flags will accompany the mums on the climb and are being sold for £5,000. One flag will protect 35,000 people against unsafe healthcare.

For more information or to download a sponsorship pack, email: info@safepointtrust.org

Watch the girls in training: click here.

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