Gavin Bate

ralia. He then moved to Northern Ireland to study English Literature at University and has since lived in Kenya, Nepal, Northern Ireland and England. He lectures widely and is a Fellow of Oxford Brookes University and carried the Olympic torch in 2012 for his charity work. Gavin had a number of jobs including scrapping oil tankers in India, Pakistan and China, driving overland trucks in southern Africa which included aid trucks to refugee camps in Somalia and the Rwandan border, teaching in slum schools in Nairobi and working ad hoc for a variety of aid agencies. The work with schools was part of a Government initiative to re-unite street children with their parents and encourage them back to school. This experience over many years led to Gavin setting up his own charity called Moving Mountains. While maintaining a small base in Northern Ireland, Gavin also lived in a small banda in the slums outside Nairobi and also spent time in the Sherpa villages of the Solu Khumbu. In 2000 Gavin celebrated the Millennium by organising the Millennium Seven Summits Expedition, attempting to climb the highest peak on each of the seven continents in one year, and in the process raising money for Comic Relief by wearing a red nose on each summit! Following that year long expedition, there have been a further five expeditions to climb Mount Everest over eleven years, three times without the use of supplemental oxygen and once alone. These mountaineering ventures enabled Gavin to raise around two million pounds for Moving Mountains. "It seems to me that for a long time in my life I was either on an expedition or planning one. A lot of the motivation comes from wanting to see dreams come true and later on for the cause of improving life through the charity I set up. From crossing the Sahara on my own to running rehabilitation camps for hundreds of street children in the shanty towns of Kenya, to climbing Everest and building schools in the mountain villages, the whole experience has been one of opportunism and positivity." "Thinking back on all those small adventures, I recall so many moments that have become exceptional. They started off as dreams, idle thoughts that developed through long days and nights to become a Plan. I love the joy, the satisfaction and the sense of living when those dreams became reality, rolled into new experiences and eventually turned to memories."