Shhh, things are starting back up again here at Arohon, and we’ve LOTS to report from the past months. It’s been way too long, but so much has happened. And yes, okay, this is a test post on our new WordPress installation on a different server.

Edit: 29 April 2011 – big update still in progress! There is a massive video to edit of the climb, and of subsequent progress. Look forward to updating you on this soon, and getting set for a much more active Arohon.com at its new webbish home here.

Our account written up by the intrepid Maherunesa – our video is still forthcoming!

On the 10^th September 2010, we plucky Khandaker sisters set off to Tanzania with the brilliant news that awesome Arohon supporters smashed the £5000 target to build the women and girl’s centre in rural Bangladesh!  We were a mix of nerves and excitement, as you’d expect, but so very determined to conquer the 19,330ft mountain to convince you to support Arohon even further! Subsequently, on the 12^th September, team Arohon were off, laughing our way up the first 1207 metres of the mountain…well we tried laughing all the way but the altitude admittedly made us a little short of breath *wheeze*.

So, yes, as we ascended further up the mountain our conversations slowly became more delirious, our heads a little lighter and breathing a bit more erratic – but there was no way we’d forget why we were putting ourselves through the trials of Africa’s tallest mountain! In fact regular updates from home about Arohon’s increasing donations helped us to keep going, so thanks guys!

Of course, it wasn’t all bad up the mountain. On the very first day we’d already broken through the clouds, and as we went higher and higher, the views only got more beautiful. By day two of the big climb we could see Mount Meru to the west, poking its head through the soft white clouds, whilst by evening we camped in the shadow of the looming mighty Kibo crater.
As our trek continued, we’d passed a variety of ever changing landscapes and microclimates, from lush forests to moon like craters – Kilimanjaro had it all! There was even a bizarre concentrated collection of exotic plants and waterfalls amongst the overall barren landscapes of the higher altitudes. Every night we had the fortune of seeing billions of stars scattered across the clear African night sky.

After 4 days of trekking, the biggest challenge came upon team Arohon – summit day. How can we describe this day? Gruelling doesn’t even cover it!! We set off at midnight amongst a trail of headlights in the bitter cold and inhospitable darkness, let’s just say team Arohon had a seriously hard time with the altitude, with Young Wheezy (Mitu) having trouble catching her breath and I was zoned out, not really being able to identify any of the friends I made on the trip, nor could I really keep my head up! Yes, team Arohon got caught in pretty dire circumstances on the final 1366m of Kilimanjaro, despite turning into “ragdolls” as one of our expedition leaders put, we weren’t giving up!

A few hours of stumbling up the dark mountain continued, until the Tanzanian sun started creeping up in the distance, casting a magnificent amber glow over the savannah (of course being as zoned out as I was, other people had to force my head to see the sunrise, but even I could see how beautiful it was). As the sky was being painted purple we dragged our feet up to Stella Point to take in the glorious landscape…for 5 minutes anyway, then we pushed ourselves to carry on to the icy heights of Uhuru Peak, one final hour away. Despite our bodies being completely drained, we refused to let our enthusiasm die down, whilst being surrounded by colossal ivory glaciers in the burning sun our wonderful guides sang us a song and helped us sway our way to the peak. Things got a little emotional as we finally saw the infamous sign, after months of planning, team Arohon finally touched the roof of Africa!!

The big climb was the toughest physical challenge of our lives, but we persevered and made it to the top of Kilimanjaro! No doubt we were fuelled throughout the arduous ascent by our determination to create a real, tangible change to the lives of girls and women in rural Bangladesh through Arohon and we couldn’t be happier that you’ve helped us to break our £5000 target so we can finally build this much needed centre!

As this is an ongoing project, don’t forget you can still donate to Arohon, and help out with a much tougher, but by no means impossible climb, the climb out of poverty!

OMG, time has flown by, and September (OMGtember) has snuck up on us. What does that mean? WE’RE CLIMBING KILIMANJARO IN JUST 10 DAYS. Eek!

It also means that we really need your help to raise (or even, better, perhaps smash?) our £5000 target. The end is in sight, but we need your help to get there. As it currently stands, we’ve raised around £3,500 (and, with the generous help of the Breadpig, that brings our total to around £4000) – so if you can help us to raise another £1000 in the next ten days we would be grateful. So please, spread the word! Join our Facebook fan page, follow us on Twitter, and encourage your friends to do the same. Most importantly, if you haven’t already (if so, THANK YOU!), please donate what you can!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with our cause, please do read our old entries, and watch our old videos (they are usually silly) – especially this Important Announcement.  We’re establishing a brand new women & girl’s education centre in rural Bangladesh, where women wanting to pursue their own careers face much cultural opposition. Through establishing such a centre, not only do we aim to provide women with basic materials and training to climb out of poverty, but we hope to achieve a cultural shift in which women can be independent and confident in their abilities. We strive for women to be eventually offered the same opportunities and to be viewed as equal to their male counterparts.

We hope you feel this is a worthwhile cause, and get donating!

We have some really, really exciting news:

That’s right! Breadpig, fellow geeky world savers, are teaming up with Arohon to match every donation you make between now, and our ever-scarily-fast-approaching Kilimanjaro climb in September, YAY!

Remember, we’re trying to raise at least £5000 to establish a brand new education and community centre for women and girls in rural Bangladesh, in an area where women wanting to pursue their own careers face much cultural opposition. Furthermore, investing in women and girls has been shown to have far reaching effects in helping the climb out of poverty. From The Girl Effect, this wonderful factsheet has lots of lovely statistics to show us this:

When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children. (United Nations Population Fund, State of World Population 1990.)

An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school:
15 to 25 percent. (George Psacharopoulos and Harry Anthony Patrinos, “Returns to Investment in Education: A Further Update,” Policy Research Working Paper 2881 [Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2002].)

Research in developing countries has shown a consistent relationship between better infant and child health and higher levels of schooling among mothers. (George T. Bicego and J. Ties Boerma, “Maternal Education and Child Survival: A Comparative Study of Survey Data from 17 Countries,” Social Science and Medicine 36 (9) [May 1993]: 1207–27.)

We are already climbing Mt Kilimanjaro to convince you, but we have a long way to go to raise the funds we need to build and maintain our first project, so we’re absolutely thrilled to have the help of Breadpig.

So basically, there has never been a better time to donate, so make sure you do so now! Visit http://donate.arohon.com/.

Breadpig, we salute you!