Himalayan River Girls
In November 2008 the Himalayan River Girls project came alive. This project had the vision of getting Nepali women working in the white-water industry of Nepal and was set up by Inka Trollsas from Sweden. Inka has spent large amounts of time in Nepal and on one trip was approached by some Nepali women who wanted to learn to kayak so they could get jobs in the industry. Rather than teach just those girls to kayak she decided to go huge, and set up a 5 week training programme for 12 Nepali women.
This was supported by women from all over the world who worked hard to get sponsorship and raise funds to buy the equipment these women would need to train and work in the industry. Many gear companies jumped on board with this project including KEEN who donated a pair of shoes to every girl who was involved in this project.
Ten months down the track we look and see if this project was successful.
Not only are 11 of these women now working and training with Nepali companies, they are empowering other women to take up white-water kayaking.
They now have a clubhouse in Pokhara where they store all the gear that has been donated to them (including 16 kayaks). It is also a place where some of the women live while they train.
One of the girls Susmita went to Europe to compete in the World Freestyle Championships this September which was an amazing experience for her. Inka was there to support her and it was awesome that Susmita was able to represent Nepal.
This project is ongoing and people are still working hard. People are still heading over to Nepal and helping out with instruction and gear is still being donated.
The success of this project is huge, what started off as something so small, has grown into an amazing ongoing project that has and still will change the lives of so many Nepali women.
If you would like to help out with this project in any way weather it is gear donations, funding, helping in Nepal etc please contact Inka Trollsas (inka@farawayadventures.com) your support in much appreciated.
For more information and photos, check out Inka’s website http://www.farawayadventures.com/nepaligirlkayakers.php
Or the Kiwi girls website http://nepaligirlskayak.blogspot.com/
Sophie Hoskins
