CNCF

Always on the look out for a new challenges, the team that climbed Mt Kinabalu and summited the Roof of Africa, Mt Kilimanjaro, is now taking on the harsh and dramatically rugged terrain of Asia's largest desert – the Gobi - to raise funds for CNCF, a Foundation that is a true oasis and a refuge to the street children of Vietnam and Mongolia.

“ It is better to be born a bull in the mountains of Khangai , than a man in the Gobi Desert ,” says a popular Mongolian expression about the hardships of living in the desert.

The nomads may opt to cross the desert on a back of a horse, but our hardy team members have chosen to walk - on the 8 th June 2008, the team members will begin the seven days, 250km trek through rocky terrain, mountains, gorges, river crossings, donkey trails and long expanses of flat desert with the goal of raising awareness and funds for a very deserving cause.

	The team members will be self sufficient, carrying their own food, gear and clothing in a backpack. They will expect the unexpected - to walk in blazing desert heat one day and rain, wind and snow the next; to climb and reach high altitudes of 13000 ft and then descend steep sided gorges with fissured mountains rising sharply on both sides. Altogether a unique, special experience in a desert that is stunningly beautiful, sparsely populated and remote. At t he end of each day they will meet at the campsite and sleep in a tent shared with up to ten people. The members will experience Ugyur and Tajik culture throughout the Gobi March and may be assisted in cooking by one of the local indigenous families living in tiny villages that eek out an existance from small wheatfields chiselled out of tiny stretches of flat land.

In usual form, our team members are fully funding their own expenses, so all money donated can be utilized by the Foundation to directly benefit the children of Vietnam and Mongolia . This challenge is all the more special to the CNCF team as the Gobi desert stretches over large areas of Mongolia , where the Foundation works amongst the needy of Ulaanbaatar and other outlying villages and provinces. CNCF Mongolia was established in 1997, and has recently celebrated its 10 th anniversary.

If you are interested in joining the team, please contact Melissa Wood on m.wood@cncf.org .

To contribute to the fundraising effort, simply click HERE and sponsor one of our team members today.

For further information, contact us in the Hong Kong office on hongkong@cncf.org