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The Electric New Paper :
NO BOYS ALLOWED
Students set out for Nepal base camp to meet S'pore's first all-women Everest team
INSPIRED by Singapore's first women's Everest team, a group of six secondary schoolgirls have set off on an adventure of their own - to the Everest Base Camp.
By Tay Shi'an
29 March 2009
INSPIRED by Singapore's first women's Everest team, a group of six secondary schoolgirls have set off on an adventure of their own - to the Everest Base Camp.
The girls from Christ Church Secondary School, who are between 15 to 17 years old, flew off yesterday to Nepal.
They will start trekking today from Lukla (2,800m above sea level), and hope to reach their destination at Kala Pattar (5,545m) in about 10 days.
There, they will meet up with their heroes - the six-member women's team, who are currently in Nepal on their own attempt to reach the Everest peak (8,848m).
Said Tan Wen Ting, 16: 'This is something very cool, a very rare chance. The guys in our school wanted to go, but it's an all-girls thing.'
They are accompanied by three female teachers and a female team leader from YMCA Singapore, which was engaged to organise the trip. They have been training hard for six months for this trip.
Twice a week - for up to three hours on Wednesdays and five hours on Saturdays - they trekked, climbed stairs, ran and cycled.
Ng Xin Fang, 17, said: 'Some parts were quite tough, but we managed to endure it.'
For example, climbing to the top of a 25-storey HDB block.
But the girls are no strangers to tough training.
Five of the six girls - Xin Fang, Wen Ting, Cherry Tan, Cheryl Koh, all 15, and Noriyuki Abdullah, 16 - are actively involved in sports CCAs.
The sixth, Priscilla Yau, 15, comes from a family of active hikers, and has already been on two other Nepal treks with her parents and siblings.
The girls also had to juggle school, CCA, exams, family and friends.
Three of them are in Seconday 4 and will be taking their O-level examinations this year.
Said Xin Fang: 'At the start, it was quite difficult to balance all the activities. But when I plotted out my own timetable, I still had time for studies.'
Blog
To encourage and motivate each other, they set up a blog at ebcgirls.blogspot.com.
As it's term time now, the girls will also be missing classes during the 18-day trip. They are set to return on 13 Apr.
To help them, intensive remedial programmes and makeup lessons during the June holidays have been arranged to ensure they catch up.
They will also be taking some worksheets to do during the trip.
Teacher Puah Mui Kiang, 40, said the school was inspired to organise this trip after the Singapore women's team went to the school in January last year to give a talk.
Christ Church, a centre of excellence in outdoor education, has been conducting regular expeditions over the last few years, including trips like the Australian Bushwalk, Beijing Ice Climb, Annapurna Base Camp in Nepal and Mount Kinabalu.
They decided to make this an all-girls team to coincide with the Singapore women's team's Everest climb, so it would be more meaningful.
Ms Puah said the selection process included physical training, an aptitude test, teachers' recommendation, interviews, and assessment of the girls' commitment towards training and working as a team.
The school also met with the girls' parents in January, and said they were very supportive about the trip, even if their children had to miss school.
Parent Mr Yau Mun Loong, 45, a sales manager, said: 'Two weeks is nothing. This is part of learning also - it's not necessary to learn only from textbooks.'
The trip costs about $3,000 per student, which is partly sponsored by the Ministry of Education. The students used cash or Edusave to pay for the remaining amount.
Ms Puah said that after all their physical and mental preparation, the biggest challenge will be adapting their bodies to the harsh climate and high altitude.
They have taken along blood pressure monitoring devices to keep an eye on the girls.
Because of their young age, the team has hired one porter for every two girls to help carry their 19kg worth of gear and other belongings.
They will also be staying in lodges along the route, rather than camp out.
Marathon runners
The four women accompanying the girls are also in good shape to take care of them.
The three teachers - Ms Puah and Ms Tay Hoon Lay, 29, and Ms Lim Lee Hoon, 31, are all marathon runners, while YMCA's Ms Melissa Mak, 28, runs triathlons.
But the girls are not fazed by the difficulty of their route.
Cherry said: 'It's not about reaching the base camp. It's about realising the potential in me. I must learn to push myself.'
Said Ms Mak: 'It's a joy working with such inspired young women... whether they make it to the highest point of their trek or not, they are still champs in their own right to me.'
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While I'm all for girls showing them can do what boys can do, I do wonder if some of these "no boys allowed" clauses in their ventures would be counter-productive to righting perceptions of boys and girls being equal but not the same.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, will they also hire female porters only (if available in the first place)?
It'll diminish gender inequality. Despite all the reports about girls outdoing boys in school, by the time it comes to adulthood and career, the boys catch up somehow and that's where the ugly gaps start widening.
ReplyDeleteKeep me posted from ground zero on how this happens, will you?
ReplyDeleteI've got a daughter.
Girls do well in school because it's a cloistered, sheltered environment, no matter how many CCAs you attend.
ReplyDeleteBoys are thrown into NS after 18 and while I'm not saying we do the same to our daughters, that experience turns boys into men. They see the real world and travel (to an extent). All that is life preparation for leadership.
Now, if one believes that males should lead and females should stay at home, then this gap would not bother them at all. But for those who believe in gender equality, this is a very troubling scenario.
Reports show that women earn less than men even though they're similarly-qualified or similarly-experienced. Reasons include "when women start families they'll need maternity leave" and "women are less likely to be willing to travel overseas for work", amongst others.
I'll have to read up on the latest HR reports, of course, but that's the jist of it.
today's paper. Women only parking lots and an unabashly declared Woman-biased mall. The slippery slope begins...
ReplyDeleteLOL really? I must go read it then.
ReplyDeleteNo problems there for me. Besides, women do keep the economy from collapsing, something to be thankful for.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, as a guy, it is part of being gentlemanly and gracious, and nothing to do with whether the ladies out there deserve it.
From another perspective, it's like reserved lots for the handicaps ... I can be gracious about it, and that does not mean I see them as less than equals.
Male-female equality don't mean we're the same, just equally worthy of self-respect, dignity and self-worth. But we're different too, and it's better to be considerate of the differences.
Just because there's bound to be some b****** out there who think they rightfully deserve special treatment won't affect my attitude towards the ladies in general.
yes but you see this is where I disagree. Giving women exclusive lots like we give the handicapped exclusive lots acknowledges that women are in need of special help, unable to stand on equal footing and are therefore by inference, less capable ie. handicapped.
ReplyDeleteI would rather see true equality instead of chest beating for removal of gender barriers when they stand in one's way only to jealously guard one's own preserves when it doesn't suit you.
I want daughters of mine to be able to stand tall, leaving absolutely no room for doubt that they got there because they were capable and not because they were "helped", no smiling idiot standing in the background, no matter how small the minority, sniggering "yeah OF COURSE she succeed."
I would never be bothered by what idiots say.
ReplyDeleteWhile I would like no less for Snowylass, I would want Snowylad to learn the fine distinction between considerate chivalry and being condenscending.
What do many handicap drivers do when they encounter the handicap lots in the carpark taken up? They'll just have to park in normal lots and make the best of it.
Being considerate towards others don't mean they are not on equal footing, or less capable. It is acknowledgement of our differences. If the other party don't need that consideration, it is only polite to graciously decline rather than feel insulted.
The measure of ourselves is how we choose to conduct ourselves towards others, not how they choose to respond.
As for the particular case of giving exclusive parking lots to women, regardless of their age, regardless of whether they are with young children etc., while I think it is principally motivated by commercial reasons, it is not a battle I deem worth fighting over to either maintain ladies' preserves or to promote equality.
Regardless of the outcome, it does nothing to prove capabilities nor incapabilities of the ladies, except when it comes to propping the economy. :)
Maybe only Israeli women can talk of equality, since they did NS and incur the same opportunity cost as men.
ReplyDelete:)
ReplyDeleteWell... I have no daughters...
ReplyDeleteThat's a situation that can be rectified ... if you want to ...
ReplyDelete...biology clock ticking...
ReplyDeleteThere're other ways ...
ReplyDeleteadoption? long queue.. besides, the two, no, four (if we count in the daddy and Ruff) big rascals are already too much of a handful...
ReplyDeletebut I'd love to have a girl.. can doll her up. ;-)
I guess that's why my brother-in-law's wife likes doing it with my daughter ... she got no kids of her own yet.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes doll up my little nieces too. ;-)
ReplyDelete