Some of us have higher mountains to climb than others.

Ryan Cameron climbed his in July 2004. He was 22 and had spent his birthday on the slopes of Kenya's Mt. Kilimanjaro. Three days later, he summited at its 5,895-metre peak.

Kilimanjaro isn't a technically difficult climb, but it's an exhausting slog. Nicknamed the "Everyman's Everest," its greatest danger is altitude sickness. But Cameron had more to conquer than height. He is developmentally disabled.

Of the 14 climbers in his group, five suffered altitude sickness and one dropped out. Cameron made it just fine.

But its effect on him took hold after he came down the mountain.

"What happened with Ryan was really quite a transformation for him," said Laney Bryenton, executive director of the B.C. Association for Community Living, the province-wide advocacy group for people with developmental disabilities.

"He was really quite shy, not fit and not participating in the community. Now, he's outgoing and confident, and I believe has a job now." (He works twice a week at a sports equipment store.) "It's quite a lovely outcome for him, aside from the fact that he raised money with his climb for Semiahmoo House."

Semiahmoo House is one of the BCACL's 80 member organizations around the province, and provides services and training for the physically and mentally disabled in the White Rock area. Through sponsor donations, Cameron raised $27,000 for it.

"I wanted to climb the mountain to help Semiahmoo House," Cameron said, "because they treated me good. I trained by hiking six to eight hours a day, for nine months. It changed my whole life. I had confidence in myself."

It gave him enough confidence to get up in front of an audience. On his return, he and his climbing partner, Jim White, the director of operations at Semiahmoo House, visited some of the BCACL's other houses in the Lower Mainland, giving a talk and slide show to their members.

It was White who originally come up with the idea of Kilimanjaro after he read of a fund-raising climb the Make-A-Wish Society had done of it. When Bryenton caught one of the pair's talks, she thought an expanded ascent of Kilimanjaro with climbers from around B.C. would not only be a consciousness-raiser for the public about what the developmentally disabled are capable of, but a good fundraising vehicle for the BCACL.

And the BCACL and its clientele desperately need money. Government cutbacks have hurt. For all the strides the developmentally disabled have made into the community, too many of them still lead lives of poverty.

For adults, the unemployment rate hovers at around 50 per cent. The employment support services they once enjoyed have eroded in the last four years because of provincial government cutbacks.

"The budget is $50 million less than in 2001 for adult community living services alone," Bryenton said. "And we know there are major wait lists for children's services.

"We know, for example, there are 150 families on the infant development program wait list in Burnaby alone. In Vancouver, families wait between nine and 18 months to get physiotherapy, speech therapy or occupational therapy. And there is almost no after-school supports for children over the age of 12 for working parents in B.C. -- too many families have to quit work because there is no other option. Another critical area of need is for respite care -- our members describe this need as critical for both families of children and adults."