The St George’s community is very proud of Head of Geography, Mrs Johnson, who recently completed a gruelling 28.9 mile ultra marathon in the Himalayas of Nepal in aid of the school’s chosen charities: The Tara Project of Love Nepal, Winston’s Wish and Ocean Conservancy.
At the beginning of each academic year, the pupils and staff of St George’s vote to fundraise for three charities in the poverty and justice, health, and environmental sectors and Mrs Johnson had championed for The Tara Project of Love Nepal to be one of those chosen. Love Nepal raises awareness as well as funds to build educational and health facilities for women and children in Nepal. Its Tara Project specifically focuses on providing the resources and training for women to make their own reusable sanitary protection. Young girls are commonly segregated - both from the home and from education - whilst menstruating due to the lack of safe and hygienic sanitary protection or through the practise of Chhaupadi, an ancient tradition that believes menstruation brings a family bad luck or ill health and makes young women impure.
Mrs Johnson scaled three peaks of over 2000m, jumped over rivers, ran through jungle and scrambled across a landslide, as well as many other adventures to complete the unusually long marathon and was delighted to come in first, completing the course in an incredible nine hours. She has now returned safely to St George’s and will be sharing stories from her experience in assembly to deepen the school community’s connection with the work of Love Nepal and bring to life the impact and importance of fundraising for such charities.
The most amazing part was the people I met. The community we stayed with were so welcoming, despite having very little, and I will never forget their incredible musical welcome as we climbed the mountain to their village.
