Poorna’s Everest climb a proud moment for Hyderabad welfare institutes

Well-known mountaineer, B Shekhar Babu, was brought on board to train 110 children, of which only 40 could leave a mark for further advanced training.
School officials say it was a challenge at first to find parents who would be ready to give permission to their young children for undertaking the challenging sport of mountaineering. Image for representational purpose. (Photo | AP)
School officials say it was a challenge at first to find parents who would be ready to give permission to their young children for undertaking the challenging sport of mountaineering. Image for representational purpose. (Photo | AP)

HYDERABAD: As Malavath Poorna shot to fame across the world for being the youngest girl to conquer the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest, at the age of 13 years and 11 months, it was not just Poorna who was under a newfound limelight, but also Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS) of which Poorna is an alumnus. She is now pursuing BA second year in a TSWREIS degree college. 

However, it was not an easy task, both for Poorna as well as TSWREIS. Reminiscing the same, TSWREIS Secretary, RS Praveen Kumar said that it was a challenge at first to find parents who would be ready to give permission to their young children for undertaking the challenging sport of mountaineering. 

Kumar said that it was with great difficulty, only in 2013 he was able to gather 110 students with permission from their parents to train for mountaineering. Well-known mountaineer, B Shekhar Babu, was brought on board to train these 110 children, of which only 40 could leave a mark for further advanced training, said Kumar. Of these 40, 20 were sent to Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling. 

Kumar said that at first, the institute rejected the proposal of training young children in high altitude mountaineering but only after much persuasion did the institute accept the proposal. 

Just a month before Poorna was to scale the Everest, tragedy struck in April 2014 as 16 people were killed in an avalanche on Everest. 

However, an undeterred Poorna went on to scale the highest mountain in the world on May 25, 2014. 

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