OUR STORY

The 25th of April 2015 was a Saturday. Two of us were out fishing on the River Dee in Aberdeenshire when Sue’s phone rang. It was a friend from Nepal asking if she had heard the news? No, we hadn’t. This was the day a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal. 9,000 people were killed, many more severely injured and over half a million buildings were damaged or destroyed. At Everest Base Camp the earthquake triggered an avalanche that killed 21 people. One of these was a Pasang Temba Sherpa, a long time friend of Sue’s. At the same time his family house in Pangboche collapsed leaving his family to live in a tent. That day, we immediately decided to do some fundraising to assist some of the Sherpa families that were bereaved or had their properties destroyed. Thanks to the generosity of many we raised approximately $40,000, much to our astonishment. We weren’t a charity, we called the fundraising Sherpa Family Support. With this money we helped rebuild property, give funding for immediate expenses, for small business development and for the costs of children. Today, we have a few thousand dollars set aside to help these families over the next few years if required. Since 2015 our activities in the mountains of Nepal near Everest have developed. We’re interested in working with a local NGO, the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee to assist in waste management. We’d like to support traditional building skills and sustainable small business for local people. It was very apparent we would benefit from official charitable status as the anticipated costs of our activities grew. In late 2020 The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) approved the Khumbu Sherpa Project.