Do you want to fight crime?

I once read somewhere that all the crimes of the world are different forms of stealing (it probably was “The Kite Runner”…I genuinely hope my lack of originality does not turn you off so early on though).  Theft is obviously synonymous with stealing. Murder is stealing someone’s life. Rape is stealing someone’s self esteem. The list goes on. I cannot deny the truth of this. All crime is rooted in the same cause.

There is however, in my world at least, another way of looking at this that reveals an equally gruesome crime. All crime is actually derived from the same effect, missed opportunity. Stealing is someone’s missed opportunity to use the money to invest, to vacation…or more importantly to eat. Murder is someone’s missed opportunity to spend time with a loved one. Rape is someone’s missed opportunity at a healthier life.

It is also criminal that children the world over still miss an opportunity to achieve their full potential due to lack of access to resources as basic as education. There’s a reason there have been so few African Nobel Prize winners, and I promise you it has everything to do with there being so few African university students. There is also a reason African nations still lag behind on most development metrics, and I promise you it has everything to do with the type of aid they are getting. They are getting a lot of fish but no one is teaching them how to fish.

I know this because I am not too far removed from observing the effects a proper education could have on someone’s life and even that of his community. I wish I could say this story is about me, but that would take away from the mammoth effort my parents put to raise this middle class brat. This story is about another Abdallah Mukalled. An infinitely greater Abdallah Mukalled. It is about my grandfather. He left school at 6 and soldiered through a life of poverty. He grew up in 1950s Beirut where classism was still very much a reality. The clichés of a poor family are true. While everyone around him was raising a family of 8 children and sinking into the abyss of mediocrity, he was a visionary. He had two kids. He sacrificed sweat blood and tears to educate them. It is that simple. His kids would go to university no matter what. He died with very little to his name but by god has his name endured. The rest is obvious. My father seized the opportunity he was offered and produced a litter of upper middle class grade A douches. He went on to work in aid organizations and help people all around the world. The past 10 years, he has worked 30 minutes away from the village where my grandfather was born and has helped develop the area in a way that no politician or neo-feudal lord ever would.  Abdallah would tell my father every single day “my only heirloom to you is your education…so don’t mess it up”.

This brings us to the Kiliminjaro climb. No one on our team is far removed from a similar story. This one is mine. To sit here and say that the climb is just a natural progression from the above and that all along I was only climbing because I wanted to pay homage to the great man that is my grandfather would be, well, lying. Fact of the matter is it all started with an idea, than a challenging stare from Nic and Nas, then an incredulous look as I actually accepted. In fact, if I am to be awfully honest I knew absolutely nothing about the charity when I first signed up. Serendipity, though, is a beautiful thing. I have always had two dreams for my millionaire years. The first is buying an Aston Martin vanquish. The second is starting a Abdallah Mukalled Scholarship at my alma mater, the American University of Beirut (naturally this is in reference to my grandfather, because despite an inherent sense of entitlement I am not that much of a douche). The Aston Martin is still miles away, to say the least. We are talking distance to the moon miles here. But god, the force, the spaghetti monster, you name it has given me a twisted chance to achieve the second dream. My priorities shifted. Fund raising to start a university scholarship fund for the Hanne Howard fund makes me want to break out in song. I am thinking Journey-Don’t Stop Believing, but at this stage I am so psyched even Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah would do.

The kids at the Hanne Howard foundation deserve a university education and they deserve to achieve their full potential. They deserve to change their lives. For years people have been donating to build a well in a village and to feed an African child. Not to sound like a cliché here, but people would have been better served if they were educated on how to build wells or in order to feed themselves. It is criminal that there are generations of Kenyan Children who missed the opportunity to fulfill their potential. This is your chance change that. This is your chance to fight crime by helping them realize their full potential. You may never don a batman cape on the streets of your city, but this is your chance to be the true Dark Knight. Carpe Diem!

https://www.justgiving.com/climingkili/