After K2

Photo: K2 copyright Nazir Sabir 2009

Sixteen people kneel in the main hall, hands cupped toward the sky. Children, their mothers, and their grandparents whisper a prayer. Nazir Sabir, one of the toughest mountaineers alive, weeps. From this village below a glacier, two men left for K2 and never returned. Karim Meherban and Jehan Baig were carpenters, men who climbed not because they wanted to but because their families needed the money. Their deaths and nine others splashed across television screens from Kansas to Karachi and made the cover of the New York Times. In the disaster, six children in Pakistan and three in Nepal lost their fathers. The Gerard McDonnell Memorial Fund is helping ensure these children get an education. Donors, many who have never worn crampons, contributed. The Meherban and Baigs' prayer was also for them.

Nazir stands. He thinks of his brother, buried beneath an avalanche thirty years ago. He passes donations into the hands of two widows and promises to return. The children watch him in silence, too young to understand contained within those envelopes is a future.

A. Padoan

Hunza, April 2009

• 
  Click HERE to learn more about the Gerard McDonnell Memorial Fund, a sponsor of these families.

• At the Mountain Fund website, click on our Active Projects and scroll down to the Gerard McDonnell Memorial Fund.

• You may also wish to read: K2: A Letter from Nazir Sabir

Healthcare in El Salvador

One of the newest projects we're supporting is a fundraising project to benefit the people of Zaragoza, El Salvador. Noah Harper is the project leader, and his purpose is to help provide assistance to the public healthcare clinic in the village of Zaragoza.

This is the only public healthcare facility in the city, and serves a population of approximately 35,000 people. The supplies on hand are extremely minimal: one blood pressure cuff, 1 pair of crutches, no wheelchair, etc.

Click HERE if you wish to support this project.

A $4 Smile

One of our projects, The North East India Project, has recently partnered with Smile Train; a non profit helping children with cleft palates. NEIP has recently sent two children in India, Alum and Tsuti, to a Smile Train doctor who has performed the first part of their cleft palate surgery; closing up the palate. Their second and final surgery, fixing their upper lip, will most likely be in 4-6 weeks, and will provide them with a new smile. The Smile Train doctor is located in Shillong, Meghalaya, which is over 300 miles from the children's village. Word is beginning to spread around the state of Nagaland, and we anticipate getting more requests to help from other areas very soon...

THIS PROJECT NEEDS YOUR HELP ~

We want to raise $1,000.00 by the end of March to help pay for the travel expenses and surgeries for two children. Our goal is to find 250 supporters who will donate $4.00 each. I'm sure if we all looked at our weekly spending habits, we could find $4.00 to spare. My family did!

If you know of others who would like to help out, please pass this on. The more we are able to raise, the more children we can help.

Click on these links for more information:
New Smiles Fund

Make a Donation

Thank you for your support!

What direction are you headed?

What direction are you headed? Or perhaps I should rephrase the question to: "What is your 'Why' "? What inspires you? What Inspires The Mountain Fund?

Challenge. A global challenge. For all of us, not just the staff at The Mountain Fund. Consider these facts for a moment from United Nations Development Programme; Sustainable Human Development and UN Millennium Project.

• 1.2 billion people live on less than U.S.$1 dollar a day


• Over half of the world's population - 3 billion people -lives on less than U.S.$2 per day


• Every year, 6 million children die from malnutrition before their 5th birthday


• Over 11 million children die each year from preventable causes like malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia

These are shocking figures that represent the staggering poverty that much of the world wakes up to on a daily basis.

The Mountainous Regions - Much of the poverty, lack of education, human rights violations, and lack of healthcare is in the mountainous countries of the world.

• Nepal - 47% Unemployment - 42% of population below poverty - infant mortality rate 66/1000 - per capita income $210us


• Peru - 9.6% Unemployment - 54% of population below poverty - infant mortality rate 31/1000 - 37% of population lives on under $2.00us per day


• India - 9.2% unemployment - 25% below poverty - 56/1000 infant mortality rate

Infant mortality is used to compare the health and well-being of populations across and within countries. The infant mortality rate is the rate at which babies less than one year of age die. So that we are clear on the meaning of the rates above, the infant mortality rate for the US is 6/1000.

The countries in the list above are just a few of the places where The Mountain Fund has Member Agencies working to improve individual human rights, healthcare, education, clean up the environment and give a hand to those who need it most.

What inspires us is the work these organizations are doing everyday. As you visit our website, please take a moment to consider what your support means, the number of lives that you have the power to impact and the positive change that you can make in the world.

New Safe House for Women in Kathmandu, Nepal

In Kathmandu, Nepal, many married and some unmarried women are abused on a daily basis. The Mountain Fund has recently opened a safe house to help provide a source of refuge for these women.

A recent "Foreign Policy" News Report, dated May 2008, has published a list of "The Worst Places to be a Woman". The female to male income ratio is 50:100, and the average literacy rate for females is 35%. The article goes on to say: "Marriage comes early in Nepal: Women born in the late 1970s married at a median age of 16. And motherhood is particularly dangerous. Nepal is the “deadliest place in the world to give birth outside Afghanistan and a clutch of countries in sub-Saharan Africa,” according to a 2006 report by the International Federation of the Red Cross. That’s because only about 1 in 5 births is attended by trained health personnel. But the government is taking steps to improve women’s lives: A quota system for women and minorities resulted in a third of the Constituent Assembly seats going to women in the April elections." [Click here to see the rest of the article]

In Kathmandu, most of these women’s families have turned them away. The safe house provides a secure environment for these women and their children to escape their abuse, to recover, and to become self sufficient.

They say there’s power in numbers, and we have partnered with The Women’s Foundation in Kathmandu, Nepal and with the Tessa Horan Foundation (located in Santa Fe, New Mexico).

The Women's Foundation has already built a great program, but that program is facing a crisis of capacity. They cannot provide enough housing for the women and children that have come seeking refuge and assistance in building a new life. By opening the safe house, The Mountain Fund is has added the additional capacity needed to continue an already successful and multi-faceted program. This house quickly and inexpensively adds the capacity needed.

In addition to offering a safe refuge for these women, we offer training programs to help them become self sufficent for their future. Some of our training programs include basic English language; computer skills; trek leadership; and organic gardening.

Click HERE to see more about this project and help support women in need.