Step Up for MS

Greetings fellow interns!

About two weeks back, i was involved with an event which left my heart tingling

My current PR placement with the events department at the Multiple Sclerosis Society of WA, a state-based non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) has been quite an eye opening experience in my opinion.

The event 'Step Up for MS' under took months of preparation prior even though it was an annual event. Individuals from all walks of life and age participated by stepping up to the challenge in a vertical climb towards the top 53 flights of stairs at Central Park. The tallest building in the CBD of Perth.  

What started out as a gloomy raining, very early Sunday morning then was hyped to the beat with some eye catching steppers. This might sound cliche. Its just another charity event again. 


How to spice up an annual charity event where the challenge and venue is the same. Stand out from the rest of the charity events, their causes and still be media worthy? That was what i was thinking when i just started my placement with them. Answer, same event plus 'not your everyday' participants.

Teams of fire fighters from all over Western Australia came suited with clothing and equipment up to 30 kilos caught the eyes of many. AFL Unpire, Darren Wilson of Adelaide flew to Perth that Saturday night for this event right after umpiring the North Melbourne and Gold Coast game and as if the game was tiring enough, he was the quickest to climb at six minutes and four seconds! 

Now i realize all the hard work behind the preparation of an event is no joke, really hard and nothing compared to what we learn the academic way. Thank goodness this placement was made compulsory as part of the component in our syllabus which allowed for a hands on experience.

From identifying stakeholders, target audience, tools for reaching them to logistics arrangements and operation procedures which our previous units had prepared us for our past group or individual assignments within a hypothetical situation. I understand better now why we had to do what we did as i piece them together.

Back to the tingle.

This guy left me in thoughts reflecting upon myself and feeling ashamed of all the times i conveniently push everything till tomorrow or another day to get it done like this blog, assignments, or other task and responsibilities. Shame on me!

Double amputee, Dwayne Fernandes was one of the participants who came and completed the climb to the top! We might have seen or heard similar amazing stories like this before but for me to see it in real life. I was speechless. He is indeed a great inspiration. 

While i complain and whine on how down life is torn by assignments, this guy beats the odds and challenges faced against him in life and still manages to fund raise for others affected by MS at this event. 

My take and lesson learnt from this. 

While i was tasked the responsibility of the donations and cloaking area, even though we had prepared a system of function prior the event to ensure as smooth as possible that things would proceed well, there were still lots to improve on. True that being over prepared is always better but even more importantly to still pay attention on how it could be better improved even though the experience ends that day.

And of course, the ultimate lesson. A slap on my head for the times i think life is tough as compared to what Dwayne does.


Warmest Regards
Grace Ye