Local adventurer ready to inspire at Curro
Currently residing in the province's capital, Vilane is the only black South African to have climbed Mt Everest twice, in 2003 and 2005, and has also been awarded the Order of Ikhamanga for his tremendous achievements.
MBOMBELA – World-famous adventurer, mountaineer and motivational speaker, Sibusiso Vilane, will inspire learners and staff at Curro School in Nelspruit with a motivational talk on Friday August 15.
Currently residing in the province’s capital, Vilane is the only black South African to have climbed Mt Everest twice, in 2003 and 2005, and has also been awarded the Order of Ikhamanga for his tremendous achievements.
Vilane faced and overcame a number of personal mountains in his life, before he reached the summits of some of the highest peaks in the world.
One of these challenges was to overcome his rural upbringing as a goat herder and successfully scale and conquer the lofty heights of all seven mountain ranges across the world, as well as completing both North and South Pole expeditions.
As a successful and proud motivational speaker he wants to challenge every child to overcome his or her personal Everest. One such child is Ernst van der Merwe, a grade-eight pupil of Curro, whose life-orientation project was the catalyst that sparked the notion to ask Vilane to present a speech on his Mount Everest experiences.
“There were two elements that contributed to bringing Sibusiso to Curro. I did a project about influential people of South Africa. My dad suggested him for my project, as he comes from this area. At the time I had no idea who he was, so I searched for information on the Internet,” he said.
Ernst then contacted Vilane who agreed to present a talk at Curro.
According to him, the main topic will be climbing mountains and obstacles in a literal and figurative sense.
“Everyone has his or her own mountain in life, it is all about how you overcome this challenge and shine your light on the world,” he explained.
“We also want to thank our sponsors for making this event possible. This means we can meet one of South Africa’s heroes.”
Curro pupils will gain knowledge about a fantastic life experience from an inspirational Lowvelder,” said Ernst’s father, Mr Hein van
der Merwe.
