FRIENDS OF HIMALAYAN CHILDREN
Empowerment through education
"Our volunteer administration ensures nearly 95% of funds raised go directly to supporting disadvantaged children in regional Nepal."
Empowerment through education
"Our volunteer administration ensures nearly 95% of funds raised go directly to supporting disadvantaged children in regional Nepal."
“One of the best paying jobs in Nepal is mountain-trekking guides. For young women, to become these specialised guides would provide them with independence, financial security and control of their lives.”
This is what a planned trek to Everest Base Camp (ECB) and summiting Island Peak aims to do. Provide experience and training to young women who can then be able to include mountain guiding in their resumes.
This 20-day expedition is the brain child of Sandra Carter from Colorado (USA) and is being proudly partnered and supported by Take on Nepal. This trek takes in ECB, which is the most famous trek in the world. In addition, they will be climbing Island Peak and participating in an expedition which is the very first of its kind in Nepal.
This expedition will be a training opportunity for an awesome team of female trekking guides who have overcome all imaginable odds (including leaving forced marriages and being survivors of trafficking) to become guides. Already experienced with guiding trekking expeditions, these women will learn new skills and expand their horizons.
In poor regional areas of Nepal, young girls have their lives predetermined for them by outdated traditions. From birth their destiny is an education limited to primary level, then labouring on the farm and taking care of their younger siblings. Marriage is prearranged for them in their early teenage years or they are sold off to labour-traders to work in the big cities or even India. The lure of good pay and living conditions rarely materialise and they can remain trapped into a life of servitude.
Consequently we see young women as the most vulnerable members of communities in regional Nepal. One way we have been combating this vulnerability is to empower young girls and young women, firstly through providing them with a quality education and secondly, providing career opportunities for a life where they are in control.
To realise these aims we are raising money to offer these girls scholarships to continue their education and training.
This expedition is the very first of its kind. We’re leading the way when it comes to empowering women and have been doing so on the mountains of Nepal, for years. For the Expedition, we are bringing together a group of strong, fearless and compassionate women to climb Island Peak, one of the Himalayan giants. They will be guided by young female porters, who are using this as a training expedition to advance their own employment and career opportunities.
On this expedition, each trekker will have a female guide/porter.
© Friends of Himalayan Children 2024