Most people go on their summer vacation to relax; but Mark and Tina Nash have other ideas.

The couple plan to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in August to hopefully raise $10,000 for a girl’s school in Sierra Leone.

The school, Hope Academy, was started by local resident Ngadi Kamara and mother Aliea Martha Kamara. The vision of the school is to alleviate and eradicate the cycle of poverty in Sierra Leone and the mission is to provide quality education that will enable and empower girls, otherwise at risk of dropping-out, to achieve their highest potential through the attainment of valuable and current life-skills and professional qualifications. In Sierra Leone, roughly 60 percent of girls who enter primary school do not go on to secondary school.

In March, Ms Kamara told The Royal Gazette that the project had been a long time in the making. At that time a final $22,000 was being raised to complete building the academy in time for the start of the school year in September.

Mrs Nash is the Executive Director of Raleigh International and has taken young people from Bermuda on life-changing trips around the world. Mr Nash is in risk management at Tokio Millennium. The couple have been married for almost 15 years and love to hike together.

Normally, they hike through places like the Lake District in England and they do it for their own interest.

“This is the first time we have climbed Mount Kilimanjaro,” said Mrs Nash. “We often do long distance hikes but this time we wanted to make it more special and meaningful. We have been involved in some of the fundraising initiatives done for Hope Academy. We thought this was a good connection. We thought that since we are going to Tanzania, why not support a youth programme on the same continent.”

The Nashes are asking for people to making donations to Hope Academy in honour of their climb. In return, they will match the donations made, up to $5,000.

“It would be great if we could get $10,000 to them,” said Mrs Nash.

She said the highest they have climbed, so far, is 12,000ft in the Himalayas. The Kilimanjaro climb will take them up to 20,000ft.

“We’re taking the nine-day route to give us the best chance to acclimatise,” she said. “There are no guarantees about how our bodies will react as we are people used to being at sea level. We are eating properly and exercising. The best we could do in Bermuda was practise on Billy Goat Hill in Warwick. We are doing it for a good cause, whether we make it to the top or not. Sometimes you don’t make it up because of the extreme altitude or the weather.”

To make the climb they just need good hiking boots and warm clothing. They do not need oxygen as is required on some mountain climbs.

Porters will have to carry the majority of their load and they will carry a day pack.

“These are the rules in Tanzania,” she said. “It provides employment opportunities for the locals. We have to go with a tour company.”

She said if the trip goes well, she may take a group of Raleigh International alumni to Mount Kilimanjaro for a fundraising climb at another time.

“We’ll see,” she said.

To make a donation see the Nash’s Facebook page at www.indiegogo.com/projects/mark-and-tina-s-hike-for-hope or see the Hope Academy page at www.hopeacademy.sl.