KATHMANDU, JUN 03 - At a time when climate change has become the must talked-about issue, the efforts of a Swiss couple that has been working to mitigate its impacts for the last seven years, should not go unnoticed.

Sabine Schworer, 34, and Dario Schworer, 42, run Top-to-Top Global Climate Expedition, an NGO supported by the Swiss government and the United Nations Environment Programme. As the name suggests, the two in their bid to aware the people about the issue, plan to travel to the highest points in all the seven continents visiting schools and being involved in clean-up campaigns en route to the peaks.

Generating awareness about climate change among the people is their work but the way of doing it is worth telling.

The most interesting part of the journeys they have made to 40 countries is: they reach their destination without using any motor vehicle that affect climate. “We have been in this field for seven years and we still need another seven years to go around the globe working for the cause,”said Sabine, who gave birth to all her three children during her journey.

They began their journey from France with Swiss Franc 2000 to conquer Mt. Blanc. The duo then sailed to Tanzania to conquer the 5,895 metre tall Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. In this way, they travelled to the Atlatnic, South America and Australia before embarking on their quest to conquer Mt. Everest.

 Sabine’s husband Dario cycled from Kolkata to Kathmandu and then to Jiri as she was babysitting for her eight-month-old son. When this scribe met Sabine at Khumjung, she had just returned from the base camp with her three children—five-year-old Salina, three-and a-half years old Andri and eight-month-old Noe.

Asked if she had risked taking the three children to an altitude of 5,360 metre, Sabine said, she had calculated all the risk and was constantly in touch with a Swiss doctor at the base camp, who also had brought a toddler at that altitude earlier.

On their way to the base camp from Lukla, the family ascended cleaning up the trails they were walking through. They taught the children about the effects of climate change at Khumjung School.

“I usually ask the children to draw the  effects and the ways of tackling climate change. To my surprise, most of the children here drew pictures of wind mills, solar energies and similar other measures,” she said. The couple plans to attend a China Expo before heading for Africa.

 

Posted on: 2010-06-03 08:41

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