In short it was my company’s challenge to raise money for Unicef UK through teams of employees climbing to Kilimanjaro. There are three different groups so far; one, two and three, and I was part of group three going up February 2020. Teams one and two have already been there which has been great advice to others and story sharing!

See the whole journey and blog posts under sections Kilimanjaro and Three peak challenge.

The reason why Autovista Group (where I work) chose Unicef is because we employees ourselves were asked of our opinion on what we would like to see the company support. We mentioned that supporting children, education and reducing the impact of climate change are important causes for us, hence Unicef was chosen because they work with all these causes.

Unicef has on their website this one simple sentence which summarizes their target and quite well what I want to achieve by raising money for them also.

“For every child the chance to grow up healthy, happy and safe”

I have four children myself and they are lucky to live in a house, go to school and get food every day. They don’t always remember to appreciate it and complain about food or homework. I try to remind them that not everyone has the chance to study and not everyone can sleep in a comfy bed with only big brother in the same room. Some children might have to sleep in a room with many more than just big bro, they may not have warm meal every day and they will not be able to go to school at all, but are forced to work every day.

I know they are children and it takes time to understand, appreciate and not take all of this for granted. We all complain sometimes although all is well, me being no exception. My children are though surprisingly aware of the climate issues and strong advocates for nature and preserving it, so very proud of them for this.

I want every child to have a happy, content and trusting smile when they go to bed at night knowing all is well and sleep without fear. I want every child to be able to give a hug to their parents and go to the park with their grandparents. They are the future, we must teach them well and give everyone an opportunity to thrive and flourish. That is why this cause is so important to me because without children we have no future.

I also love nature in all it’s fierceness and beauty, Australian outback and Finnish Lapland. I want to make sure we are not doing anything to make things worse, but rather hope that we have now finally taken the turn for better in the fight against the climate change. The choices we make now have longstanding impact so let’s hope we make the right ones! I also believe that everyone’s contribution counts, small streams make a big river and big rivers flow to the sea.

Why I chose to apply

After being between pregnancies, nursing and school runs for many years it is finally a bit more quiet in the house. I can hear myself think better and realised I had a selfish thought of wanting to do something for me.

I want to challenge myself somehow and sports + nature have always been the way to reduce stress for me in addition to music. I love wandering in the nature, hiking and trail running. My runs though often are not very results-oriented as I stop admiring animals, plants and scenery taking pictures forgetting I was running to try and beat my last time.

So when the little one was big enough (preschool) I thought why not? I actually already applied first time 2016, but cancelled it realizing I cannot commit to fundraising or training yet, as the kids were still younger and there was a lot of changes happening in our lives.

When it was announced that applications for team three were open I thought now is my time. I will apply, maybe I could actually do this! Luckily I was chosen and here I am now writing this blog post and I’m so excited writing this. I am excited to be a part of this, I am excited at what our team can achieve and I am excited that I can do something good while doing all this.

Individual and team goal – Reached and exceeded, thank you everyone!

We all had individual goals and we also have a team goal. My goal is to raise 2000 EUR (which I did achieve thank you everyone!) and our team goal is to raise 21 000 £. There is 12 of us on this journey and intention is to get to the top together and of course raise at least the goal amount but hopefully even more!