2012 Adventurers of the Year
2012 Adventurers of the Year: Sano Babu Sunuwar & Lakpa Tsheri
“Without adventure you are not feeling real life.”
- Sano Babu Sunuwar
With nearly 72,000 votes cast, we are thrilled to announce the 2012 People’s Choice Adventurers of the Year: Nepalis Sano Babu Sunuwar and Lakpa Tsheri Sherpa. Their dream to complete the Ultimate Descent—climbing Mount Everest, paragliding down, then kayaking to the sea—truly embodies the spirit of adventure.
Babu, 28, a kayaker and paraglider, and Lakpa, 39, a mountain guide, combined their skills to persevere in extreme conditions. Babu had never done a high-altitude mountaineering expedition like this before. Though he had three Everest summits to his name before the expedition, Lakpa didn’t know how to swim, let alone kayak the Class V rapids they would encounter. Through teamwork and tenacity—and without the support of corporate sponsors or big budgets—they did something no one had ever done before.
Saving the circus children
An investigation into the trafficking of Nepalese children to work in Indian circuses.
Maiti Nepal
Image by Ashish Lohorung Rai via Flickr
Maiti Nepal (माइती नेपाल) is a non-profit organization in Nepal dedicated to helping victims of sex trafficking. Currently, it operates a rehabilitation home in Kathmandu, as well as transit homes at the Indo-Nepal border towns, preventive homes in the countryside and an academy in Kathmandu.
Maiti Nepal (“maiti” meaning “mother’s home” in Nepali) was established in 1993 by a group of socially committed professionals to fight against the social evils inflicted upon Nepalese females, such as domestic violence, trafficking for flesh trade, child prostitution, child labor and various other forms of exploitation and torture.
As the founder and director of Maiti Nepal, Anuradha Koirala won the CNN Hero of the Year award in 2010. She had previously received the Courage of Conscience Award from The Peace Abbey in Sherborn, Massachusetts on August 25, 2006.
The United States government has given a two-year grant of $500,000 to Maiti Nepal in April 2010.
Learn more about Maiti Nepal.
Room to Read
Room to Read seeks to transform the lives of millions of children in developing countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education. Working in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations and governments, we develop literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children, and support girls to complete secondary school with the relevant life skills to succeed in school and beyond.
John Wood, founder and executive chairman, launched Room to Read after a trek through Nepal where he visited several local schools. He was amazed by the warmth and enthusiasm of the students and teachers, but also saddened by the shocking lack of resources. Driven to help, John quit his senior executive position with Microsoft and built a global team to work with rural villages to build sustainable solutions to their educational challenges.
Find out more about the mission, history and their projects on their website.
Nepal Unites
Nepal Unites is an informal group of civilian-activists that believe in democracy and citizen supremacy. The goal is to raise the common Nepali citizen’s voice against the indifference shown by the political establishment. The demand is for accountability, particularly of senior politicians who have time and again proven their incompetence and dishonesty. It is as well an attempt to mobilize and motivate every Nepali to speak up and contribute to building a prosperous and responsible Nepal.
Here’s a very inspiring video:
More about their mission, campaigns, partnerships, etc. on their website.
