By Joan Barsulai
It is 4pm on Saturday afternoon at the Flying Kites children’s centre in Njambini. The sun is unusually blazing hot today, and two men, both drenched in sweat, are playing football with boys and girls as a handful of speculators cheer from the edge of the field.
As the game winds down, the children run in droves into the arms of the men, who lift some of them high up and walk out of the field as the others follow, singing and dancing.
Sibusiso Vilane, a South African mountaineer and Toby Storie-Pugh, a British adventurer and philanthropist based in New York, have come to Njambini to champion a common cause — charity.
They stand out in the way they have intertwined their sense of adventure with charity work.
Sibusiso came into the limelight in 2003, when he became the first black African to successfully summit Mt Everest.
Sibusiso ignored the great odds and abject poverty that constantly threatened to derail his plans as he focused on the prize. He has gone ahead to scale the ‘Seven Summits’ (the highest points on each of the seven continents on earth).
He has also set the world record by becoming the first black man to walk to both the South and North poles unassisted. Throughout many of his ventures, Sibusiso’s motivation has been his charity work.
Toby, on the other hand, was inspired to change the lives of young people nine years ago, when he came across needy children while he was training in the hills of north India.
“It was the first time that I felt a real sense of mission,” he says.
The encounter inspired him to do something to change the lives of destitute children.
He decided to ride a motorcycle from France to South Africa to raise money to help such children from around the world. On his way, he stopped in Kenya and volunteered in Kayole.
