22 May 2009
APPLICATIONS CLOSING SOON!
It’s the opportunity of a lifetime, an all expenses paid trip to walk the entire 155km wartime trail that is the Kokoda Track.
Clubs WA along with state club associations in NSW, the ACT, Victoria and South Australia, will select 11 young people between the ages of 16 and 22 to walk the track over ten days between the 28th September and the 9th October.
This year marks the 5th anniversary of the Kokoda Youth Leadership Challenge, a program that started in 2005 with RSL clubs sending young people from their local community to Kokoda.
Clubs WA Executive Director Peter Seaman said walking the wartime track is much more than a lesson in Australian military history. “The change people undergo in ten days is remarkable. They return with a sense of purpose, a determination to make a contribution in their community and a realization of how fortunate they are.
“In designing the program, we have made decisions very deliberately to keep the group size extremely small. The group will be commanded by two trek leaders with a dozen local guides providing support to ensure the trip is intense but incident free.”
“The successful candidates will have to pass a medical test and then undergo three months of training to ensure they have the fitness to complete the track while carrying a 25kg backpack,” he said.
Capel resident Phoebe Tucker, who completed the 155km track last year, said Kokoda was both one the most physically challenging events she had ever undertaken as well as one of the greatest experiences of her life.
“I now view the past 18 years of my life in 2 sections; how I was before I walked Kokoda and how I am after Kokoda. I know how fortunate I was to be given this opportunity and am determined to use the experience to help others,” she said.
More than 2,000 Australian soldiers died along the Track during 1942 and 1943, helping prevent the Japanese Army from launching a full scale assault on Australia. At the conclusion of the trek, the group will visit the Bomana War Cemetery.
The cemetery contains 3,819 Commonwealth burials from WWII, 702 of them still unidentified.
Please visit www.clubswa.com.au or email kokoda@clubswa.com.au for more information.
Media: Please contact Peter Seaman on 0417 236 638. Applications close 7th June 2009.