South African Chaeli Mycroft, First Female to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania

A South African woman named Chaeli Mycroft, who is an ability activist is attempting to become the first female quadriplegic to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania — on a wheelchair. Based in Cape Town, Mycroft, along with her team of seven co-climbers, is taking on this challenge in a bid to raise funds for the Inclusive Education Programme and The Chaeli Cottage Inclusive PresSchool and Enrichment Centre. In a bid to further create awareness for her organization and the climb, a website has been setup, complete with Google Earth fly-through of the route, live tracking of their progress on Google Maps, regular videos and messages from the climbers and the ability for users to leave personal messages and make donations to her organization. The climb, which will begin for real on August 29th, is hoped to last for seven days, ending a day before Chaeli’s 21st birthday. “The climb illustrates the importance of working together, instead of having disabled people just being awesome by themselves,” jokes Chaeli. Chaeli’s organisation, The Chaeli Campaign, was founded in 2004 with her sister and three other friends with the aim of raising funds to purchase a motorised wheelchair for Chaeli, who was born with cerebral palsy. Surprisingly, they raised ZAR20,000 in seven weeks. As a result, they decided to start a not-for-profit organization with the aim of helping other kids with disabilities throughout South Africa. You can follow Chaeli’s Mount Kilimanjaro climb with her team of co-climbers and make donations to her organization.