A School, a Hospital and a Yeti Scalp.

I’m sitting in bed, nestled inside my toasty sleeping bag. It’s 5:30am. I’ve been in Nepal for six days now. From the chaos of Kathmandu to the mighty Himalayas. The air you breathe here is so different. Thinner…but also purer. Much like the people. Most of them are Tibetan Buddhists. They’re friendly, welcoming, hospitable to a fault. Even the children will greet you with a ‘Namaste” as you pass.

Today, after a short, but strenuous two-hour hike, we arrived in Khumjung, a small village, located at 3790 meters above sea level. We are 25 miles front Mt. Everest now.

Along with neighboring Kunde, it is here that Sir Edmund Hillary made his home as he prepared for his and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa’s now world famous 1953 summit push. Because of that link the residents of Khumjung are lucky. After their successful first ascent of Mt. Everest Hillary made a point to come back. Through the Himalayan Trust, he opened a school, now considered amongst the best in the area. He also built a hospital. It’s small, rural, little more than a clinic by our standards. But it’s the only hospital in this entire Khumbu region, and it offers its services to residents free of charge.

As we visited both—oh, and a monastery which claims to posses, I kid you not, an honest to goodness Yeti scalp—we came across several girls in the area, playing. One stood out above the rest. Lollipop in hand, she wore a shirt which read D.R.E.A.M: Discover, Respect, Explore, Amaze, Motivate.

This girl is lucky. Because of where she lives, she will likely never fall victim to the underbelly of Nepali society, where 20,000 girls every year, are LURED OR SOLD INTO SLAVERY. They end up in the brothels of India. Or are quite literally sold by their parents for the meager sum of $50 a year to wealthy families, who often times never return them home.  

It’s why I chose to support the American Himalayan Foundation’s STOP Girl Trafficking program. In 500 schools, located mostly around Western Nepal, they educate 12,000 girls a year. They talk their families into keeping them in school. They explain what the dangers are. They pay for their books, their tuition, their uniforms. When the girls graduate, they help them get jobs. In short, they keep them safe. 

My goal is to keep 100 girls safe for one year. That’s $100 per girl. Can you help me?

https://bit.ly/2I4czrD