Charity climb a grand idea
April 11, 2007
Ottawa Sun, by Aedan Helmer
If all goes according to plan, Giselle Lalonde Mansfield will toast her 55th birthday from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's famed highest peak.
The Ottawa grandmother is hoping to raise $50,000 for grassroots HIV/AIDS relief projects in 14 sub-Saharan countries that have been ravaged by the disease.
Last August, the Stephen Lewis Foundation brought 100 grandmothers from Africa to Toronto to meet a group of Canadian grandmothers. The Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign has raised over $800,000 for HIV/AIDS relief since its launch.
When Mansfield first heard of the cause, she was moved to form her own group of crusading grannies in Ottawa.
"These women have buried their own children and now they are responsible for the care of their grandchildren," said Mansfield.
"A lot of them have contracted the disease while caring for their dying children. They have nothing -- their children were the wage earners and now they're gone."
Mansfield had already decided upon Kilimanjaro as her next challenge in life when she became aware of the campaign, and "everything just fell into place."
BROTHER DIED OF AIDS
She has dedicated her climb to her brother Michel Lalonde, who died of AIDS in 1995.
"When my brother died, it was the same atmosphere, the same environment. There was no medication, there were no drugs -- there was a huge stigma attached to HIV," said Mansfield.
"He couldn't tell anybody, because his employer would have fired him on the spot. This is what they're living through (in Africa) as we speak."
Mansfield has enlisted three other grannies, but hopes to increase the number to 10 by October, when the group will fly to Tanzania.
"The goal is very strenuous and very difficult, but if you've got the inspiration, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro is nothing compared to what these women go through on a daily basis," said Mansfield.