87-Year-Old Polar Explorer’s New Adventure

Barbara Hillary is no ordinary 87-year-old woman. In 2007, at the age of 75, the retired nurse from Harlem and two-time cancer survivor (www.barbarahillary.com ) became the first known African-American woman to reach the North Pole. Four years later, she  traveled to the South Pole, becoming the first African-American woman (and quite possibly the oldest human being!) to reach both the North and South Poles.

Now, inspired by her polar adventures, Barbara wants to use her platform to draw attention to the very real effects of climate change in another frozen landscape: the snowy wilds of Asia. 

In February 2019, Barbara will travel to Outer Mongolia, where she will visit an extremely rural, nomadic tribe whose lives are being devastated by climate change and the desertification of their native steppes. In keeping with her interests in education and women’s empowerment, she will spend a day with a woman-owned-and-run company of traditional Kazakh rug makers—unusual to the area—and deliver a talk to a group of schoolchildren at a village school. She will also visit a few of the region’s first eagle huntresses to learn about the ancient Kazakh practice of hunting with golden eagles, and how women have begun to break into the traditionally all-male custom. She will then travel north to stay with the Dukha people, a tribe of nomadic reindeer herders whose little-known way of life is waning and all but lost even among their own youth. Barbara will be the first African-American ever to visit the Duhka at their winter camp, a locale only very rarely seen by visitors.

In addition to corporate sponsorship, we are looking for donations to help send Barbara on this incredible and worthy expedition. A lifelong boundary-breaker who defies expectations to remind us what we are all capable of, Barbara has been an inspiration to many people in her lifetime, particularly women and girls, and now looks to bring her curiosity and courage to a new environmental frontier.

About Team Barbara Hillary:
Christina (Kiki) Burns, Christina Hodson, and Schuyler Allen make up Team Barbara Hillary, and we have each volunteered our time and efforts to allow Barbara Hillary to continue to pursue her next expedition and to help build awareness of not only Barbara's indomitable spirit and accomplishments, but also the devastating effects of climate change.

Kiki and Schuyler are in New York City. Christina lives in Los Angeles but splits her time between LA and NYC.

Kiki met Barbara Hillary while interviewing her for a cover story in her print magazine "American Senior" in spring 2018, and discovered that Barbara had another expedition in her sights. After the interview and discovery that Barbara solely raised all the necessary funds for her last two expeditions to the North and South Poles, Kiki was so inspired that she pledged to help Barbara fund-raise for the next adventure. In the summer of 2018, Kiki told Christina Hodson about Barbara and she was immediately intrigued. A few days later, she was in Barbara's kitchen in Brooklyn, learning about her past and future expeditions, and so much more of her life story. She knew that she also needed to be a big part of Team Barbara Hillary. In the fall of 2018, Schuyler learned of Barbara Hillary and upon meeting her, knew that she could use her skills of communicating and networking to further support Barbara's dreams of riding on a reindeer in northern Mongolia.

100% of the funds will be used to pay for Barbara's expedition to Mongolia and associated costs, including:

-Accommodations (Ger camps, countryside yurt): $2,500 USD
-Staff costs (Guides, driver, cook): $3,827 USD
-Mongolian transportation (By air, using Cessna plane; By land, using Toyota Land Cruisers): $8,230 USD
-International flight: $5,330 USD
-Travel companion flight: $1,500 USD
-Miscellaneous (equipment, food supply, host family payments): $8,024 USD
-Estimated trip insurance: $2,000 USD

Our first goal of $5,000 will be used to pay the down payment for Barbara Hillary's winter expedition starting on February 27th and ending on March 14th, 16 days total.

Barbara Hillary will receive any overages after all expenses have been paid.