The guiding principle behind this journey is that everything is interconnected and we all affect each other in this world. This inspirational journey is made up of a team of internationals. At the moment we have five countries represented by a team of eight, and we are still looking for a couple more people. The journey's path will stop off at different community-based projects, so we are connecting youth to already-established nongovernmental organizations such as the Jane Goodall Institute and the World Wildlife Foundation. Youth will be stationed with them for six to eight months at a time so they can learn and work within the communities. We are launching at the South Pole in November, and it will take just over 20 months for the whole human-powered expedition.
At this stage, we are engaged in fundraising. Basically the expedition is just a very small part of what this non-profit organization is trying to achieve. We are linking the youth of today with the current leaders, in order to empower the leaders of tomorrow. It's inspiring, connecting and empowering youth to confront the critical issues of today. The focus of course is climate change and everything that falls under that umbrella.
The first pole to pole trip was founded and facilitated by Canadian Martyn Williams, who has had a successful mountaineering business for many years and was the only man to successfully lead trips to both the North and South poles and on Mount Everest. Kevin Scott, who has successfully stopped logging in a number of conservation areas, is the president of the Pole to Pole Leadership Institute, and he also brings a wealth of experience. They are leaders in the environmental movement, yet they also want to inspire youth to take their place.
There are three different components of Pole to Pole - the expedition team, the community-based team and the education team. I'm on the expedition team, and we'll be departing in November. We'll be kite-skiing to the Patriot Hills, which is a place in Antarctica. We are hauling sleds and our gear to the Western side of the Antarctic Peninsula. From that point, we'll be met by a yacht and will sail to Cape Town. From there, we'll be cycling through the Eastern side of Africa to Mount Kilimanjaro. That's the leg I'm involved with. Basically, the Pole to Pole journey is set up in two halves, the Southern Hemisphere and the Northern Hemisphere. At this stage, we've assembled the team for the southern portion. We will open applications again soon for the northern leg. To add a level of consistency, two people from the southern leg will carry on past the halfway point with the second leg team.
One of the biggest challenges of organizing an expedition of this size is teamwork. To have the international, diverse groups of young people, who are all leaders in their own right within their communities and for us all to get along, make steps forward and achieve our goals together. It will continue to be a huge challenge, but that's what the institute is all about: We want to show the world that we can all work together to overcome challenges. We can work as a global community, as a small team to achieve big goals.
Youth is so important to achieving our goals. The older generation can be sort of stuck in their ways sometimes, whereas youth have more potential to change more freely. The Pole To Pole Leadership Institute itself is an age range of 18 to 28, but the educational programs are implemented at grade seven to nine age group. My history has involved working with youth as an outdoor education teacher in New Zealand.
For me, that's where it starts - educating young people to understand each other better so that when they grow up, they can be more accepting of each other, which automatically translates into a more positive world.
Other challenges revolve around the physical environment we'll be traveling through as well. We just spent five days winter camping in Tetrahedron Provincial Park, facilitated by Martyn Williams. We used cross country skis and full packs, and really challenging ourselves on that physical and mental state of just being cold. The conditions we were in, because they were really wet, were the equivalent to being to being in -30 or -40 degrees Celsius. In the gym, I'm doing anaerobic and aerobic exercises for general fitness, as well using balancing balls for core strength, so all those little muscles will get stronger. We're also doing three or four sessions each week hauling tires to prepare for hauling these sleds in Antarctica. We'll be spending a lot of time on bikes to prepare mentally for cycling 100 kilometers a day in Cape Town. We'll also have an intensive six-week training camp before we're deployed again.
I've spoken to a few people who have been down in Antarctica, and from what I've heard, it's just vast. The expansiveness is such that people who go down there never look at the world the same way again afterwards. I think that reflects just how pure it is; it's just untouched by human activity. I'm just going with an open mind and will be as physically prepared as possible. This summer I'll be going to the Alps to do some ice climbing.
Personally, I'm not at home in the urban environment. My work has been taking youth out of the urban environment and showing them the natural environment. For example, I worked in southern England at a summer camp for London youth. We'd take them for a walk in rural areas, and for them, even seeing cows was amazing. They would all comment on how huge they looked, for they'd only ever seen them on TV. Watching youth see nature for the first time is just phenomenal for me. Urbanization brings pollution and dirt to uncared for, city environments. I just love the sheer freshness and clean air of open spaces.
Our goal is to come face-to-face with a million youth and tell our story. You can just imagine what the story rippling out does for people. We will work out our eco-footprint (environmental impact) and ask youth how they can help in their own home and what simple things they can do at a local level to decrease the size of the eco-footprint in their area, from only flushing the toilet half the time, to cutting the length of their showers.
Basically, a lot of what we're teaching is what Al Gore has said in The Inconvenient Truth. We've all been watching the DVD and certainly he is someone who we would love to make contact with. We're a Canadian-based organization, so obviously David Suzuki's name has come up often as well. At this stage, I'm networking as much as possible, and the actions of these environmental leaders speak to the great momentum that is building in the green movement right now.
My greatest fear is obviously that the world we love will crash. Personally, my dream is to have a house "off the grid" in New Zealand. I can be self-sufficient in my own little world, and can offer my sustainable way of living to others. I've spent a lot of time in countries around the world, but Christchurch in southern New Zealand is where I call home.
A "crash" has happened to me in the town I live in. We had a huge snowstorm last winter, the main roads were cut off and the Eco-lodge I had been working on was just purring. The locals ended up coming to our lodge and hanging out. Before that, they'd been kind of bagging on the "greenies," and it turned into a huge eye-opener for them. And that made it all worthwhile. There is so much opportunity for new environmentally-minded business. This is really just a start of something that will take the world by storm, and all that I'm learning now is just a huge stepping stone that I will take with me.