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Find out moreAdelaide woman to climb Everest for Plan
08-April-2010
Lynette being welcomed with flowers and leis by a Nepalese community
Lynette Trott from Adelaide in South Australia will soon attempt to climb Mt Everest to raise awareness of Plan International and the 'Because I am a Girl' campaign.
If successful, Lynette will join an elite group of five or six Australian women who have climbed the world’s tallest mountain.
As part of her journey, Lynette last week visited a Plan-supported community in Nepal and has been helping Plan Nepal to generate publicity about 'Because I am a Girl'.
For some girls their 'Everest' is to get a clean safe drink of water, to get an education. This shouldn't be down to luck of birth. Every girl should have the opportunities I have had.
Read Lynette's blog about her visit to a Plan-supported Nepali community.
Lynette’s attempt on the world’s highest mountain is all the more impressive when you learn that seven years ago she had never even rock climbed.
'Life changed overnight at 29 and part of the rebuild was to write a life to-do list. Sir Ed (Edmund Hillary – one of the first known to have reached the summit of Mt Everest) had always said the Milford Sound and the Routeburn Tracks in New Zealand were the most beautiful in the world, so I added them to the list. The minute I went above the tree line the "bug" bit.'
After returning from New Zealand, Lynette, an accountant who sponsors two children through Plan, decided to email a climbing expert with the question: 'What would it take for a lady in her 30s, who lives at sea level and has never even rock climbed before, to climb Everest?'
Lynette was expecting to be quickly dismissed. Instead, the expert simply gave her a list of things she would need to do to achieve her goal.
Seven years later, there’s only one thing left on her list.
But the personal achievement of climbing Everest isn’t enough for Lynette. After hearing about Plan’s Because I am a Girl campaign, she decided to support the campaign, aiming to shout from the top of the world that girls’ lives would be changed if they got equal opportunity in every walk of life.
'I was lucky enough to be born in Australia to wonderful parents and this allowed me to follow my dream to climb Mt Everest,' says Lynette. 'For some girls their "Everest" is to get a clean safe drink of water, to get an education. This shouldn’t be down to luck of birth. Every girl should have the opportunities I have had.