The Straw Wolf contemplates the Kilimanjaro ascent to raise funds for the children of Africa.

{You can see Mount Meru in the background.}

The Straw Wolf aka John Glassford, is a straw bale house builder living in a remote rural Australian town Ganmain NSW. John was born and raised in Kenya, East Africa, until about the age of 21 when he left for Scotland and and went to Edinburgh University. John and his young family migrated to Australia in1968. John and his wife Susan are now finally settled in the West of New South Wales, Australia and has dedicated the rest of his life to rescuing the AIDS orphans of Africa. Especially those from his home town of Nairobi in Kenya and to provide them with shelter, food, education and clean water. All the things that Rotary International does so well as a team of well organised dedicated women and men the world over.

John has been instrumental in raising awareness of the situation of the orphans of Africa due to one or both of their parents dying from HIV/AIDS. There are now around 15 million orphans as a result of this pandemic with no end insight. UNAIDS estimates that there will be 20 million orphans in Africa by the end of 2011. Some non government agencies/bodies involved in the AIDS pandemic believe that the figure will be much higher than 20 million throughout the African continent.

It was Stephen Lewis the former UN Special Envoy to Africa for HIV/AIDS through his video Race Against Time that first alerted John to the situation in Africa. John and Susan have now been back “home” to Africa with 3 visits in the past 4 years and with many more to come.

John has a string of successful international fund raising projects under his belt that he has seen from conception to finish, with the most recent being the Kili 28/8 project which raised in excess of $78,000 for the children of Africa. There is much more to be done and the Orphan Rescue Kits will be just one of the many projects you can support.

To date we have raised around $200,000 for Africa including the Mount Kilimanjaro Climb, one major raffle and the work done by Past District Governor in District 9700 with the Orphan Rescue Kits.  This sum of monies also inlcudes matching grants from the Rotary Foundation.

The next visit to Africa will be the Mountains of the Moon climb and we are looking for climbers and supporters to join us in 2011.

Contact John Glassford. Email jacksflat@gmail.com or call 61 2 6927 6027.