Mother raises £27,000 in memory of her daughter
Gillian Millane climbed Mount Kilimanjaro as a tribute to daughter Grace who was murdered in 2018.
The mother of Grace Millane, a Wickford woman who was killed on the eve of her 22nd birthday whilst backpacking in New Zealand has climbed the tallest peak in Africa in memory of her daughter.
Gillian Millane reached the summit of 5895m Mount Kilimanjaro on new year’s day, in the process raising more than £27,000 for various charitable causes.
These included White Ribbon, a charity which works to end violence against women and girls.
The charity tries to engage men and boys in their campaigns, and encourages the signing of a pledge to ‘never use, excuse or remain silent about men’s violence against women’.
Grace Millane, a University of Lincoln graduate was murdered in Auckland, New Zealand by a man she met on the dating app Tinder as she backpacked around the country on her gap year in December 2018.
Her killer, Jesse Kempson was jailed for a minumum of 17 years for her rape and murder, and since his sentencing has been convicted of sex attacks on two more women.
Grace’s cousin, Hannah O’Callaghan has spoken about why her aunt - Grace’s mother Gillian chose to raise money for the White Ribbon charity.
“When Grace was murdered, there were lots of vigils in New Zealand, and White Ribbon New Zealand was behind them.”
Hannah explained how White Ribbon does its work.
“They do it at a grassroots level, it’s all through education - because we’re not going to make a difference unless we start educating”.
Since Grace's death more tragedy has struck the family, as Grace’s Dad, David Millane died of cancer in 2020. This, Hannah says has made each day a mountain to climb for Gillian, but it also got her thinking.
“I’ll use Gill’s own words. She says she climbs mountains every day since Grace was murdered and since David died, so the period between Christmas and new year is always a bit difficult, so she thought well why not set myself a challenge and climb a real mountain”.
Asked about what she would like to say to those who’ve donated to the charitable causes following the trek to Africa’s roof, Hannah said:
“We just want to thank them, it’s absolutely amazing. This money’s going to make such a difference.”
“We can’t thank people enough for getting behind Gill and the rest of the team to get them to the summit.”