Bryan's Herculean effort raised almost £2,000 to support our work. 

He tells us more about his epic challenge…

You don’t have to climb a mountain to help somebody. It just happened to be something I wanted to do. When I was researching the trip to climb Kilimanjaro, I realised that if I got something out of it, I also wanted to do something for the place and the people too.

I found out that a huge problem in Tanzania is child trafficking. And when I dug a little deeper, I discovered Lumos has offices in neighbouring Kenya. The more I looked into it, the more I saw that Lumos works to curb child trafficking and help stop it.That’s why I chose to dedicate my climb to Lumos.

The Lumos team gave me advice on how to set up a Facebook fundraising page and people just jumped on board. I had to keep increasing my target because so many people donated – it was wonderful. It was a bit nerve-racking too, as I realised I still had to climb the mountain and get that banner up there!

The trek to the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro involved many long days of walking in tough terrain, with wet clothes and tired limbs. It was hard. On summit day, I was about 200 feet from the top when it hit me. We were going to make it. And so, I started crying. It was one of those moments where everything pays off.

I want to encourage other people. I hope this trip not only helps many children through the actual fundraising, but also inspires someone else do some fundraising or something for Lumos. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy like climbing a mountain!

“You don’t have to climb a mountain to help somebody. It just happened to be something I wanted to do.”