“The night when we were planning to leave for our summit bit, it actually snowed at our high camp, which meant avalanche conditions on the mountain we wanted to climb that day,” Manyapu recalls to CNN.
“We had to rapidly come back as a team, make a safety call and then prepare for the next day. So it was very challenging.”
And for a relatively inexperienced climber like Manyapu, though she had trained extensively, the challenges were even greater.
“Poorna and I several times when we were in the tent, we would talk about: ‘What if, you know, we won’t be able to make it to the summit, you know, what if this? What if that?’” Manyapu says.
“But then we would always like go back and encourage each other and motivate each other that, you know, let’s just take it one step at a time.”
‘I’ve always been inspired by her story’
In the group’s darkest moments on the trek, they found motivation in Project Shakthi’s purpose and its tagline: ‘We climb so that girls can read,’ a deeply personal cause for both Malavath and Manyapu.
Reflecting during the Covid-19 pandemic on her own childhood during which her family moved from India to the United States “to help fulfill her dreams,” Manyapu realized that she could help girls without the same support system to also access opportunities.
“I have a three-year-old daughter, so when I look at her, I feel like it’s my responsibility to make the world at least one percent better for her and her generation,” she adds.
Manyapu comes from the same village in India as Malavath, but the two women met for the first time in 2019, when Manyapu was pregnant with her daughter.
“I’ve always been inspired by [Malavath’s] story since 2014,” Manyapu says. “I called her up and I said this is something I want to start an initiative where we could climb for a cause.
“We’ve done things for our passion so far, but how about taking our passion to serve a purpose of empowering, educating and elevating underprivileged school children?”
When Malavath embarked on her climb up Mount Everest as a 13-year-old, she was unaware about the problems of inequality which rack society.
“As I continued climbing the seven continents’ highest mountains, I came to know about that society,” she says. “And there are many girls who are struggling in rural areas and they aren’t getting any kind of opportunities.
“I always think about the students who are studying with me and the people who are in the villages… One of my friends got married at like 14 or 15 years, and now she has two kids and they are going to school. And I just finished my education.”
On that climb up Everest, Malavath recalls vomiting from the exertion, remaining stuck on the expedition for “like 50 days because of weather” and being determined to summit the mountain.
“When I got an opportunity to climb Mount Everest, it was a different aim to prove that girls can do anything,” she says. “Then after that, I became a mountain lover maybe because mountains have taught me so much.”
As well as raising money for education, the project will aim to change the mindset about what women can accomplish and elevate stories that can serve as role models.
As part of this, Project Shakthi will partner with the US-based AVS Academy to pair student volunteers with girls sponsored by the organization so that they can receive one-on-one mentorship.