Welcome to the Fistula Free Climb! My name is Ilya Brotzky and I’m a senior Applied Economics and Management major at Cornell University and the Trip Leader for the Fistula Free Climb. Through this blog, we are hoping to share with you our experiences in putting together the Fistula Free Climb and how much it means to us. We’ve all followed unique paths to Mt. Kilimanjaro and are equally excited, nervous and grateful to be here. We hope that you enjoy learning about our numerous challenges and will choose to be a part of our many successes.
As for me, I was born in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia when it was still under communist rule on August 16th, 1988. Two and a half years later – and just months before the collapse of the U.S.S.R. – my parents and I immigrated to Israel. There we lived in a small town outside of Jerusalem called Ofra, where my parents worked tirelessly to secure a way out of the Middle East to North America. Soon after the birth of my younger brother Dennis, our family moved to Vancouver, British Columbia where we have been living for the last 16 years. The experiences of my childhood, accompanied by the many lessons I have learned through my last 12 years as a competitive swimmer, have motivated me to constantly push forward in life and make the most of the opportunity I was given. This has ultimately driven me to Cornell University where my passion for social enterprises and global development have flourished.
After spending my freshman year living at home and attending the University of British Columbia, I was fortunate enough to be recruited transfer to Cornell by the varsity swim coach. Having always wanted to own and operate my own business, I chose to major in Applied Economics and Management in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. In the two years that I have been in Ithaca, I have been exposed to a large variety of people and experiences that I would otherwise have not and am very proud to call myself a Cornelian. In fact, it was another Cornelian, Seth Cochran, who has inspired the Fistula Free Climb and served as a mentor for the somewhat confused and overwhelmed student that I am. I hope to personally share with you my experience on putting the trip together and in doing so reflect on what I am, or am not doing, to make the climb as successful as possible.
