REACH @ Ratho

On Saturday I was at Ratho to team up with Pauline and around 40 kids from the charity REACH which is for kids with Upper Limb Deficiencies. We only had an hour with each party of 20 and all the work was done by Ratho instructors, my job was basically to speak to the kids and try give them an idea of what climbing with a similar disability is like and try give some feedback. Some of them were very inspiring and determined. Yet some had very obviously had extremely sheltered lives and were convinced they weren't capable, one lad in particular stood out and after a fair bit of gentle encouragement by 3 of us he eventually tied in and gave it his best shot. It would've been great to have had more time to work with the group as it was an interesting challenge not just with the varying physical capabilities but also on how getting past the confidence issues some of the kids had.