Climbers in SD!

Every evening, half-way up a mountain in the African Kingdom of Swaziland, a dedicated group of aspiring young rock climbers train rigorously in an effort to realise their dreams.

These climbers are students at Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa, they represent countries such as Mozambique, Botswana, South Africa and of course Swaziland.

The inspired founder the United World College movement Kurt Hahn believed amongst his philosophies that the education students receive should affect a greater range of talents and skills than they knew they possessed. This term at Waterford has seen a new revival of the Outdoor Department due to a volunteer from Red Cross Nordic United World College Outdoor Department, Andrew Hepworth.

A full Outdoor programme has been implemented and students this term have been instructed and encouraged to challenge themselves in new ways. Each weekend this term, there have been hikes to mountains and reserves, overnight camping experiences, kayaking excursions, and sport climbing weekends locally and afar.
Last weekend was no exception and saw a group of dedicated climbers travel to Waterval Boven in the province of Mpumalanga. Waterval Boven a town developed due to the plans to connect South Africa with Mozambique by rail in 1892. Here lies a formation of beautiful red sandstone cliffs, the area is now considered a climbing Mecca for sandstone climbing and has been placed on the world international climbing map.

Rock climbing gives students the opportunity to learn not only about the sport, but about themselves, testing their abilities outside the classroom. Climbing is an individual challenge, something which is rare to come by in the other competitive sports at Waterford. There is now a collection of experienced and promising young climbers wishing to promote the sport inside and outside Waterford, coaching fellow year groups under supervision.

Amongst these is Sisekelo Dlamini, 13 years of age, who was attempting to climb grade 18 this weekend, 33 being the hardest of climbs in the area. Sisekelo has committed himself to regular climbing training and shows eagerness in reaching his goals as a climber, his progress has been dramatic and his character enables him to ask every question needed to become a good climber. Experienced South African instructor Rob Schormann gave positive feedback to Sisco claiming that ‘we are hopefully training a future Olympic champion’. All the climbers are excited to watch the young climber continue to jump in at the deep end and progress to a greater level.

Rob Schormann, from Nelspruit,  has been working with schools in South Africa and setting up climbing walls across the province of Mpumalanga. His fantastic and enthusiastic approach has enabled the climbers to improve their technique and performance. Rob has also encouraged us to develop ties with school climbing teams in South Africa which we can compete against and to arrange climbing exchanges, offering our climbing facilities in exchange for theirs. We also aim to enter a team into the school climbing competition in Johannesburg in 2010.

In preparation for this we are currently now developing areas close to the campus in order for us to practice and using our very own indoor climbing wall, which was built in 1985.
We believe that interest in climbing within Swaziland has potential to be a very important contribution to African climbing. This comes at no better time than now, when climbing is pushing to become an Olympic sport.

In order for this to happen, interest needs to be shown worldwide, including countries within Africa. The climbing team at Waterford is currently using this concept in order to gain support and funding from large scale climbing nations, in an effort to support Sisco and others like him in a bid for future recognition as African and more importantly Swazi climbers.