A fabulous crowd of 350 guests attended the Melbourne dinner on Friday 14 May. Li Cunxin mesmerised the audience with his inspiring incredible life story - a tale of hardship, opportunities, and amazing twists and turns.
As a young boy, Li recognised the opportunities presented to him as a way of changing his life. In much the same way, the Australian Himalayan Foundation is giving opportunities to the people of the Himalaya through its education and health programs: through enabling children to attend school by providing scholarships; by improving the quality of their education; and through access to healthcare education in remote areas.
We were also enthralled by Christine Gee's conversation with Andrew Lock - it gave us an insight into the motivation and mind of Australia's most accomplished high altitude mountaineer.
One of the other highlights of the evening was the presentation of the inaugural AHF Hillary Award to Andrew Stobart. Andrew raised over $40,000 in sponsorship via a trek he completed in 2008. He donated these funds to our scholarship program (with RHEST in Nepal). We're very grateful to Andrew for his incredible contribution to the AHF's projects.
Stunning images of the Himalaya were on show throughout the evening.
Valuable funds were raised for our projects in the Himalaya - thank you to all our guests for their generosity, and to our many prize donors:
World Expeditions Tyrrells Wines, our wine sponsor for the evening Crown Casino Penguin Books Chandra Yonzon, Hon. Consul-General to Nepal Sybille Noras, and the "Saving Snow Leopards" website Cricket Australia Visacard Australia
Images of the evening will be posted on our website in the near future.
