Adventures and Acts of Kindness: Cathy O'Dowd Recap

Inspiring Adventurous Lives and Supporting Worthy Causes with Cathy O'Dowd

In this episode, Cathy shares her 'Call to Adventure' by encouraging listeners to explore indoor rock climbing and to experience outdoor climbing for those already familiar with the sport. Additionally, she highlights a cause close to her heart, the Ruins Ori Women for Health project, which provides essential medical outreach in the Rwenzori Mountains of Uganda. This initiative, supported by the Friends of Kagando , demonstrates how small contributions can make a significant impact on remote communities.

Please Visit Friends of Kagando

Transcript

I have two closing traditions,  one of which is the call to adventure and the other is the paid forward. So call to adventure. I'd like to ask you for a suggestion for listeners and viewers, a suggestion to get people inspired to go and be adventurous, do an activity, go a place doesn't need to be the summit of Mount Everest.

It could be whatever, whatever you, you recommend. So what is your call to adventure?  

Okay, I'm going to give a two tier call, a climbing based one,  that everyone who hasn't tried climbing,  go to an indoor climbing gym.  Everyone. And if you're kids from the age of about three or four,  uh, there is no age limit, there is no weight limit. 

Everyone.  Because it's great fun, it's a puzzle solving sport.  It's incredibly good exercise because it's full body movement, it's mobility, and then um, you know, it's weight bearing on your arms and your legs,  uh, and, you know, you do it in a group, you put yourself together, it's not competitive directly,  so I think it's well worth a try for anyone who's thinking like, I have just never found a form of exercise. 

that I really enjoyed,  try indoor rock climbing.  And then, for those of you who are already indoor rock climbers, try going outdoors. You might not like it, it's very different, but  it's, it's, the two sports are kind of separate now, they are two different things.  If you're enjoying it indoors, try taking it outdoors and see what it feels like  when you're really on a natural rock face with the wind whipping in your hair and the ground a long way below you and see how that feels.

Just for fun.  

Yeah, excellent. That's two great suggestions. I actually really fancy doing the indoor stuff and I might actually take my little girl. That'll be one of our weekends sorted.  

Oh no, you should. It's great for kids because they have such good power to weight ratio. They're powerful in blood. And suddenly they go like, cool, I can do this thing.

I can do it almost as well as my dad, who's battling to get up.  

And they don't mind falling off, to be fair, or bouncing on the mat. Great. Excellent. So finally, the pay it forward, uh, suggestion, again, uh, an opportunity to raise awareness for a worthy cause, charitable project or something of that ilk. What would your pay it forward suggestion be? 

Right, this is very obscure and close to my heart.  So my first ever expedition, you know, with proper glaciers and altitude and ice was the Rwenzori Mountains.  They're on the border between what is now the DRC and Uganda.  And a friend of mine, Rita Miller, British nurse,  decided to go out there onto the Ugandan side  To start doing medical outreach to villages high up in the Rwenzori mountains, where there are only footpaths.

There are no roads,  so for children particularly, but anyone doesn't get brought to hospital nearly soon enough because it's so difficult.  And helped by myself and some other friends, got some money together. She Rwenzori Woman for Health.  And this is trying to take small amounts of money and make them as effective as possible.

So this is getting nurses out to the road head on the back of little scooters. Nobody's buying fancy four by fours for aid workers. This is local infrastructure, walking into these villages, doing education for the mothers. and to try and help them with the children and help them understand when to try and bring them to hospital.

They've, they've started to build little insurance schemes, village based insurance, so there's a pot of money when you need to bring the child in, because these hospitals aren't free. They're cheap for us, but they aren't free.  And she has managed to do such good work deep in this mountain range with such little bits of money.

And at this point, the project is, the fundraising goes in via a British society called the Friends of Cagando. I'll give you a link to put it in the show notes. Uh, so Ruins Ori Women is part of the bigger Friends of Cagando project. And that's the place to put in the money.  So, if you want to put in a little bit of money, that's going to make a big bit of difference. 

to a small number of people in a very beautiful mountain range. I think this is a lovely little charity.  

Thank you and we will indeed and we'll get that listed in the show notes. It sounds a very noble and worthy, worthy cause and very unique and very different. It's sometimes it's easy for guests and people to give the, you know, the the Red Cross or the British whatever foundation, but these little things should not go unnoticed.

They sometimes make bigger impacts in smaller communities. Thank you, Cathy.