Sherpa Watches gives back to the Sherpa regions in Nepal
As Sherpa Watches is using the name of the Sherpa people of Nepal as a brand name, and thus profit from their reputation, we believe that we should give something back. We will donate a percentage of every watch sold and give it to a good cause in the Sherpa area in Nepal. For our first watch models, the Ultradive and the OPS models, we chose “Sagarmatha next” in the Khumbu region and the “Nepal Himalaya Sherpa Foundation” in Kathmandu, both supporting different projects in the Sherpa regions of Nepal.
Sagarmatha Next strives to promote
sustainable tourism
in the Khumbu region of Nepal
https://www.sagarmathanext.com/
Being home to the world’s highest mountain, the Khumbu region receives an ever-growing flow of visitors from across the globe. While this has brought socio-economic development in the area, it has also put a lot of pressure on biodiversity and the region delicate ecosystem during the last few decades.
Creating awareness
Sagarmatha Next aims to change the perception around ‘waste’ by creating awareness among the locals and visitors and demonstrating that if treated properly, waste has a value. Sagarmatha Next is the first project of Himalayan Museum and Sustainability Park, a nonprofit company, situated at Syangboche near Namche Bazar, en route to Everest Base camp. The foundation’s center is a unique place at 3,775 m where you can meet mountaineers, trekkers, artists, nature lovers, and environmentalists from around the world. The facility houses a learning center, an art gallery, a waste lab, a shop selling items made of recycled waste and a cafe.
Carry me back
Sagarmatha Next provides support to the local stakeholders of the Khumbu region to bring innovative and sustainable solutions for solid waste management. To achieve this, the initiators of Sagarmatha Next have partnered up with various local organizations in Khumbu and Kathmandu. The joint efforts have resulted in ‘Carry me back’, a clever and impactful system of waste removal.
Smart ecosystem
As its name suggests, ‘Carry me back’ is a crowdsourced waste removal system, utilizing the movement of locals and tourists. The Sagarmatha Next team offers bags to locals and visitors at the pick-up station when leaving Sagarmatha National Park. Then the bags are disposed of in the dedicated bins placed at Lukla Airport. The local private airlines – Tara & Yeti Airlines – then transfer the waste to Kathmandu, where the social enterprise BW2V collects them for recycling at their facility.
At Sherpa Watches, we wholeheartedly support the work of Sagarmatha Next. Like the initiators, we firmly belief in partnerships, reciprocity, innovation and down to earth sustainability.
Nepal Himalaya Sherpa Foundation promotes school reconstruction
The Nepal Himalaya Sherpa Foundation, Kathmandu, supports the reconstruction of a mountain school in Nepal.
This school is located in the district of Dolhaka, in the Mount Everest area at an altitude of approx. 2700 m.
Currently, 80 children aged 3 – 17 attend the school with 6 very dedicated teachers. There is also a cook
who prepares a daily hot meal for the children and makes the traditional milk tea for everyone.
Life after the earthquakes
In April and May 2015, the school was destroyed in the devastating earthquakes, as well as the kitchen building, part of the new building and the entire village and monastery. The infrastructure in Nepal was equally destroyed after the earthquakes. Through donations, the foundation was able to procure some tents and tarpaulins so that the villagers could build a shelter for the school lessons and then re-establish a school routine to some extent.
