My late father, Dave Jeffery, was wheel chair bound after suffering from a degenerative illness caused by radiation mylitis.

My Dad was an amazing man, who came to South Africa as a professional football player, married my Mom (who was the Springbok soccer captain – Mike James’s sister) and lived in South Africa for the remainder of his life. He was a truly awesome man who ran many associations which saw underprivileged people receive sponsorships for sports, built tent cities in rural areas, raise money for children living with and / or affected by HIV Aids and many other initiatives.
He was not only a very big hearted person, but he had amazing sales ability, and enormous sense of humour, that ensured that he was extremely popular and was an awesome father, husband, businessman, friend, colleague, son and brother.

When my Dad first got ill, he lost the use of his voice, and being a sales man, this was devastating. Secondly, he lost the use of his legs, which as a very sporty and active person, this was a huge blow! However, my Dad still remained positive and bright as he believed that a cure would be found that would give him the use of his legs back. Sadly, the paralysis spread up his body, and as he was losing feeling in his hands, arms and upper chest; he had a massive brain hemorrhage, which resulted in his complete paralysis, including lock jaw. He could only move his left eye.

Tragically he passed away from organ failure.

Not a day goes by that I do not miss and think of my father and / or do I get people admiring and respecting the man he was.

One of the many things that we as a family, and his friends did learn out of this experience is that there are very few wheelchair friendly places in and around Durban, including restaurants, toilets, shopping centres, gym’s, doctor’s rooms, movie theatres, buttons in lifts etc.

We also noted that there are also very limited wheelchair appliances, as well as the fact that wheelchairs are heavy, and the aluminum ones are very expensive.

Lastly we noticed that disabled parking’s were either not wheel chair friendly, or used by able bodied people! My Mother said to a lady once “Why are you parked in a disabled parking” to which she replied “I was only popping into the shop for 1 minute”, my mom’s response was “believe me, you wouldn’t want to be disabled, even just for 1 minute”.

A couple of months ago my good friends Tony, Debs and their two sons Luke and James were in a car accident. Tony and Debs were killed, and James passed away from his injuries a couple of days later, leaving Luke as the only survivor. Luke is recovering well, however, is paralysed from his waist down. Luke is only 7 years old.

This terrible tragedy has revoked my passion for creating awareness for wheelchair users and people with disabilities.

Therefore, in memory of my Father, to create a more wheelchair friendly environment, to promote safe driving, safety belts, rugby “bad tackle” awareness and to raise funds for the Quadpara Association of South Africa, I am climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro between 12th December 2010 and 20th December 2010. The reason why I chose Kilimanjaro is that it’s a very big, challenging and frustrating mountain, just like the ones wheelchair users and people with disabilities must be faced with on a daily basis

No mountain is too high to climb with Faith, positive thinking and support!

- Jo Wilkinson