The children from three schools of Borda, Jivati and Devada.
Ten months ago, none of them had heard of Mount Everest. And now over the next two months, 10 tribal students from Vidarbha will make a maiden attempt to conquer the world’s highest peak.
On Sunday, these students from remote government Ashram schools of Chandrapur district of Vidarbha left the city for the expedition, after undergoing a rigorous training, that included six elimination rounds, at various locations in the country.
From the three schools at Borda, Jivati and Devada in the densely-forested fringe of the district, they will be the first team of tribal students from the country, after Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, to make the attempt.
In June last year, the state government’s tribal department and the Chandrapur Collectorate had jointly undertaken ‘Mission Shourya’ with help from ace mountaineers Shekhar Babu from Telangana and Avinash and Vimla Deoskar from Nagpur.
Initially, 47 students entered the first round and 10, including three girls, finally emerged to be the fittest to undertake the arduous adventure.
On April 13, they will reach Lhasa from where they will start the mission from the Tibet side and will return to Chandrapur by June 5.
The decision to go for the mission was exciting for these 10 enthusiasts — Chhaya Atram, Shubham Pendore, Umakant Madavi, Vikas Soyam, Akash Atram, Pramesh Ale, Indu Kannake, Akash Madavi, Manisha Dhurve and Kavidas Katmode.
When Collector Ashutosh Salil, Assistant Tribal Project Officer Vishal Joshi, the Deoskars and Shekhar Babu first visited their schools, they were wondering what Mount Everest was. “None of them knew what it was,” said Vimla Deoskar, who had scaled many mountains in the Himalayas with two near-successful attempts in 1993 and 2015 at Everest.
“Being tribals, they have already gone through a lot of hardships in life and were naturally fit to undertake the rigorous training. And with the kind of performance they have put up at various camps, including in Telangana and Leh-Laddakh, as part of their preparatory training, I am sure they will be successful in achieving the goal,” she added.
The students had trained at Gyan Bharati Skills Development Centre run by the Deoskars at Wardha and the Transcend Adventure of Shekhar Babu among many others.
During the actual ascent of the mountain, the students will be accompanied by Shekhar Babu, an Everester from 2007, who had trained 13-year old Dalit girl Poorna from Telangana — the youngest girl in the world to have scaled the mountain.