Room to Read’s Spring Trek Sydney: Changing the world through education

When those of us that love to hike or bushwalk set out on a trail, we do so willingly and enthusiastically often with backpacks strapped behind us filled with provisions. We walk dozens of kilometres to do something good for our minds and bodies, often feeling a great sense of achievement at the end of a trail.

This October, you have the opportunity to enhance that experience multi-fold by not only doing something good for yourself, but something great for the world – ensuring deserving children get to fill backpacks with books and set off eagerly to school.

The Sydney chapter of Room to Read, a global non-profit focused on literacy and girls’ education, invites you to join us at Spring Trek Sydney—an 18 or 30 km trail event, to be held on October 22 and set in the stunning Ku-ring-gai National Park, where teams of three to six walk (or run!) together to raise awareness and investments for Room to Read’s Girls’ Education Program.

The trek will provide you with an exciting and challenging day, packed full of adventure. You’ll walk along beautiful and often rugged tracks, passing through patches of rainforest, discovering hidden rock shelters, crossing bubbling creeks, and enjoying spectacular vistas of pristine bush and expansive water views, all within an hour of the heart of Sydney.

Funds raised will support girls in low-income countries across Asia and Africa to complete secondary school and develop the skills necessary to negotiate key life decisions such as critical thinking, empathy and relationship building.

1 in 7 of the world’s adult population can’t read or write, two-thirds of them are women.

The transition into and through secondary school is when girls are at the highest risk of dropping out due to family and societal pressures along with increased school fees and precarious circumstances travelling many kilometres to school on foot on unsafe terrain. However, we know that these girls—who are often the first in their family, or even village to attend secondary school—have immense potential and that educating a generation of young women leads to a healthier, safer and more prosperous world.

Room to Read will reach the incredible milestone of supporting 50,000 girls through their Girls’ Education Program worldwide at the end of this year and have tracked graduates to know that more than 2/3 of them are continuing to universities or tertiary education. Yet, millions more are waiting for that same opportunity to chart their own future.

To meet the great need that exists in girls’ education, Room to Read’s Sydney chapter of volunteers has organised Spring Trek Sydney annually since 2015 and over a hundred family, corporate and friendship teams have joined forces in the name of Room to Read.

This year, our goal is to raise $250,000—enough to fund 250,000 days of school and life skills training for girls supported by Room to Read who would otherwise have been forced to drop out. Each trek team that signs up agrees to a minimum fundraising goal of $900. We welcome family participation and children above age 14 can trek with us (with the participation of an accompanying adult). A great philanthropic family building experience and opportunity to instil global awareness among your teens.

A former trekker summarised her experience by saying, “Spring Trek is the best day out in Sydney’s beautiful bushland. Superbly organised, great sponsors and an abundance of enthusiasm from participants and volunteers alike, you will finish the day well rewarded, knowing you have helped a worthy cause.”

With every step you take in the Spring Trek this year you will be directly supporting the young women in Room to Read’s Girls’ Education Program, taking them one step closer to achieving their dreams of an education.

Join our movement and get active for education. Sign up to trek with us on October 22, while spots are still available.

Are you already a supporter of Room to Read? Planning to take part in Spring Trek? If you have any questions, comments, updates or corrections? Let us know by commenting below.