About Kirsten

My childhood was full of mountain experiences that have left me with many memories.  I was quite small when my parents took me bushwalking and they would have to piggyback me at the end when I became too tired.  I played in a toboggan when I was a toddler before learning how to ski when I was four. When I was five, I walked through a cloud on Mt. Baw Baw and discovered that it was ephemeral and not like fairy floss.  I remember being amazed by the spaceship like construction (a silver dome built with hexagons) of the Melbourne University Mountaineering club hut on Mount Feathertop.  I remember sliding down the slopes of Mount Kosciuszko on the soft tufts of grass.  I enjoyed seeing animals in the bush and finding huts, boardwalks or bridges in the middle of the wilderness.  Of course many of our walks were rather long and I complained once fatigued and remember crying my way up the summit of Mount Bogong.  But a love of nature and a sense of adventure remain.

I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro last year and developed “altitude sickness” – a yearning to climb big mountains.  Before Kilimanjaro, I had never climbed any higher than Mount Kosciuszko (2225 m).  I enjoyed climbing a mountain that enabled me to trek through 4 climate zones in one week.  The views are epic and it is an amazing experience to live above the clouds that lap like waves against the mountainside.   My eldest son has asthma and I want to stand in solidarity with him and his experience of sometimes lacking oxygen.  The experience of altitude is perhaps somehow similar to giving birth: being appallingly physical but also transcendent, gifting you with a knowledge of strength that you didn’t previously realize you had, moving through fear of the unknown to the known and compelling.

A Passion for Human Rights

Migrante is an international organisation that advocates for the rights of Filipinos working abroad. They are based in Australia with a branch in Melbourne. One of the main concerns in our local context is the treatment of workings entering Australia under the 457 working visa. Many workers experience exploitation which may include being underpaid or even not paid, being asked to do work not stipulated in the contract or summarily dismissed. Such problems are very difficult to deal with when the employer has the control over the working visa and may cancel it at any time. This compromises the ability of the 457 workers to advocate for their conditions and creates the context where abuses may easily occur. Migrante has been offering support towards those people affected by these problems and my goal is to raise funds to support this endeavour. To learn more about Migrante, check out their link: http://migrante.org.au/about/