ALMOST A year ago to the day Stephanie Solomonides was shortlisted to join the Commonwealth’s Antarctic Expedition.
In March she was selected to join the final team of eight women who will fly to the South Pole in December.
Today she might not be able to go and all because she can’t find enough sponsors.
The 26-year-old needs to raise €10,500 by September 20 and a further €24,500 by the end of the same month. If she fails, she cannot go. As of yesterday, she only had €3,300 in the bank.
But the feisty Nicosia woman refuses to give up hope.
“I’m trying not to be discouraged. I’m trying not to think about it,” she said.
Clearly frustrated, Solomonides said she had been stonewalled at almost every turn since she started looking for funding back in April, in a quest that included big business.
“I didn’t think it would be such an issue to find sponsorship. I thought I’d find 10 major companies who would be interested… I’ve been getting polite – and impolite – refusals,” she said.
Only the Bank of Cyprus, the Cyprus Computer Society and TSYS International, where she herself works as an implementation officer, have agreed to sponsor her so far.
The rest of the money has come from private donations which she had to resort to after the corporate route proved virtually impossible.
The reasons: bad timing, the recession and inability to change the company budget for 2009. In short, no one’s interested.
Solomonides said she was now trying to spread the word using face-to-face contact as well as email and social networking sites, including Facebook.
“I’m just spreading the word. Posting links to the Commonwealth expedition website,” she said.
A close friend even created a Facebook group: “The Stupendously Spectacular Support System for Stephanie Solomonides.”
The money raised will cover the costs of equipment, travel expenses, insurance and medical coverage. The first deposit must be installed on September 20. If she fails the deadline, she will be excluded from the expedition.
Solomonides said beyond the message she’d received that local business was suffering due to the recession and had no spare cash to give away, people couldn’t see the bigger picture.
She said: “A lot of people think I’m doing it for my own personal gain and benefit. They think it’s something very frivolous.
“This is about promoting women in the Commonwealth and women in general, raising awareness about climate change and demonstrates the understanding and interrelation between team members from diverse backgrounds, something we are trying to promote in this country.”
Despite the unfavourable odds Solomonides said she had decided to give it her all.
“At first I was worried. Now I’ve said let’s go all out: explore every avenue, every possibility. I want to be able to say I definitely tried my best. If I still don’t manage it I’ll know I tried every single contact I had and followed up every lead. I don’t want to think ‘damn, I didn’t try this company or that avenue of sponsorship’,” she said.
In December 2009, two teams of four women from Cyprus, Ghana, India, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, New Zealand and Jamaica will set off from opposite coasts of Antarctica to ski to the South Pole. Unguided, they will need to rely on each other to navigate themselves safely to their destination.
The teams will meet each other at the South Pole around New Year’s Day 2010 – the year of the Commonwealth Games to be held in New Delhi, India. They will be the first women of their nation to ski to the South Pole.
On Solomonides’ personal Facebook page she quotes Captain Robert Falcon Scott: “The Antarctic is a place where the Gods crumble and the humble rise to surpass them.”
It would be a shame for Cyprus not to be represented in this historic expedition because of a lack of sponsorship.
n Contributions can be paid into a special bank account in Stephanie Solomonides’ name at Hellenic Bank, account number 101-10-029969-01.
Alternatively she can be contacted via email at [email protected].
For more information www.commonwealthexpedition.com
