SISTERS Emma and Katrina Grier will face the challenge of a lifetime when they trek 5,895 metres to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro this month.

Former Wycliffe College students Emma, 23, and Katrina, 20, are making the climb with their father Andrew, a mountaineering enthusiast.

"Dad has been climbing for years and Kilimanjaro was just something we had always talked about doing together and so we just decided to plan it," said Emma, who lives in Bristol Road, Stonehouse, with Katrina, their mum and step-father.

The trio fly from London to Tanzania on Friday, August 30, where they will then travel to the base camp at the bottom of the mountain before stating the climb the next day.

"It is going to take us seven days complete the trek all of which will be spent climbing between eight and 12 hours," said Emma.

"Our longest climbing day is 15 hours when we make the final ascent to the summit. We will have to get up in the middle of the night to start climbing to make sure we don’t get caught in the heat."

Emma, who studied drama and performance at Portsmouth University, started her own theatre company after she graduated called Act it Out! – which focuses on working out real life situations.

"I found the charity Cybersmile through my work with the company as cyber bullying as we use them to help us with real life scenarios," she said.

"Therefore when I signed up for the climb I knew Cybersmile was the charity I wanted to support as I know first hand the great work they do with young people who have been victims of cyber bullying.

"Katrina, who is about to spend a year in Germany as part of her degree in law and German at Cardiff University, is raising money for the mental health charity Mind.

"We have managed to fund the whole trip ourselves so all of our donations will be going straight to our chosen charities," said Emma.

To sponsor the sister’s go to www.justgiving.com/Emma-Grier or www.justgiving.com/Katrina-Grier