Australia
Australia now has a new representative, Lyn Taylor. Jim could not keep an eye on OZ and the international scene, so we are now very fortunate to have Lyn with us. Lyn says: "I am enjoying the role as Australian Representative, although it is a bit hectic and I have so much going on at present with my own work. My mind keeps racing all the time trying to think of new ideas." Lyn has been very active so far, writing letters, contacting media, and fundraising, arranging to have the Sharing The Load flyer distributed with all Nepali visas.
In this first half of the year, there have been quite a lot of activities:
- two slideshow at the Patagonia stores in Sydney and Melbourne, raising money and awareness for IPPG
- IPPG display at Patagonia store in Sydney (thanks Lyn and Brad for the photo album)
- Major article in the Australian Weekend Magazine on the porter issue
Canada
Elsie has been busy as usual with mailouts, promotion and organising distribution of IPPG pamphlets though the Royal Nepalese Consulate Toronto. She is also bringing up the porter issue in her talks around the country. Elsie has been a good help with finding contributors to the photo exhibition.
France
Nicolas spent the season working at the HRA (Himalayan Rescue Association) post in Manang. Here's Nicolas' report:
"From Nepal, we didn't have many porters' problems on the Annapurna trail this season. But it seems that some trekking companies do not keep control on their porters and I started a mailing list to send to the French ones. Indeed, after talking with some French guides, we noticed that many times, the sirdars decided without order to use less porters to make more money for themselves. We still have a message to send to the companies to ask them to decide before leaving KTM the number of porters they will use for the trek without any possibility of changes!
In Manang, we placed many copies of the January 2000 IPPG Newsletter to the people disposal. We had good reactions about it. We also noticed that, in Everest area where many expeditions came, they had more porters' problems than us (we saw very few expeditions). Maybe there is a link between the number of expeditions and AMS in porters: for a question of time and money, do the porters spend enough time to acclimatize? For this last season, these AMS problems were more the actuality than the overload problems. Some porters were really interested by the daily lecture in aidpost of HRA. It seems very important to involve expeditions in AMS prevention too.
Regarding our activity in France, we'll start to distribute a pamphlet in September with the story of Shyam Bahadur to everyone asking a tourist visa at the honorary consulate of Nepal in Rouen.
Last news: regarding a scuba diving expedition in Gokyo Lake, a radio network (Radio Lac Léman in Switzerland) talked about the young porters conditions during this attempt (the highest dive in the world). In fact, among 60 porters, 20 were less than 16 y.o. and carried more than 50 kg. I had the article from a Swiss-French guy and we send it to a big French daily newspaper (Libération). They will produce an article about the lack of humanity in this kind of expedition. They heard about the Sunday Time's one and they want to sensibilise the people who travel to Nepal (they already wrote about the subject in November 98)."
Germany
Lots of work as gone on improving the website. Thanks Monika for organising and financing it, and Thomas for doing it!
Monika has been a great advisor concerning the photo exhibition, and has helped finding contributors to it. Monika also organised a radio interview with IPPG input.
Nepal
Prakash has been busy this season:
- facilitating the BBC documentary with research, logistics and advice,
- coordinating the photographic exhibition with Nepalese trustee Suren Thami
- liaising with TAAN, NGIO's and government bodies
- supervising of the Manang Rescue Fund
New Zealand
Trish has been doing mailouts, fundraising, distributing IPPG info at Travel doctors clinics, networking, and working on having porter info sent with visa applications.
South Africa
Welcome to Paul, the new South African representative. Paul is highly motivated and has a passion to help people in need. Paul lives in Pretoria, the capital city of South Africa and would welcome offers of help and support from Nepal-o-philes in SA. Welcome aboard Paul!
Switzerland
In Switzerland, the porter was the main topic in the newsletter of the Swiss Society of Mountain Medicine in February 2000. Urs did also some slideshows to raise awareness and money for the IPPG. Some of his slides were used for the Sunday Times and the Australian, as well as for the BBC articles and programs.
Urs is planning to talk about the porters' life in Chile during the world congress about mountain medicine later on this year.
UK
From Ed:
"The porter issue and IPPG made it into the national press. After a series of articles published in climbing and outdoor magazines The Sunday Times Magazine included a long article entitled Dead Men Walking written and researched by Stephanie Clark. I hope that this wide publicity will be of great help in raising awareness both of the problems faced by porters and the existence of the IPPG.
A number of trekking companies have received IPPG endorsement and some have kindly included a mention of the work of the IPPG in their promotional material.
People continue to donate generously to the IPPG and I would like to thank Peter Forsyth and World Expeditions UK particularly. World Expeditions UK have been a constant source of support and as well as financial assistance ever since the early days of the IPPG.
IPPG UK has doubled its work force! I am now being kindly helped by Anna Mathias who is a fellow student at University. Together we are looking into the possibility of either making the IPPG into a registered charity or affiliating ourselves to a larger charity. The latter is probably more realistic so if anybody out there knows of a suitable organisation which might be prepared to take us under its wing then please get in touch with me."
USA
- Dr Jim Litch is now down to earth again, having been at Kunde hospital for two years with his wife Dr Rachel Bishop. Jim has tirelessly promoted porter wellbeing along with the myriad other duties at the hospital.
- Ben Ayers: see clothing bank article in this issue
