Family climbs world peaks for Nepalese children

Two parents and their 10 and 12-year-old sons are climbing to the world's 14 highest mountain base camps to raise money for Nepalese children.

John and Martina, from Bracknell, and their boys Benjamin and William, are raising money for the Nimsdai Foundation, which supports education in remote locations.

They arrived at the halfway point of their challenge by reaching Everest's base camp in Nepal, more than 5,000m above sea level.

John said climbing Everest had been a "phenomenal" experience.

He said the family were currently embarking on a five-year challenge, which will see them trek an estimated 1,100km with their children.

The challenge will see them try to reach the 14 base camps of each 8,000m mountain.

John said Everest was had "amazing views... stunning people and culture".

"It was really good fun, but hard work, really very hard work," he said.

"We went with our two young boys and the four of us managed to reach top of Everest base camp as part of our 14 peak challenge, which has been really good."

He said they were "not worried" about taking their young sons on the challenge because they had done "a lot of research".

"Our boys are very resilient, and they had done a lot of treks before, we've been hiking for a long time as a family," he said.

"Last year we were up in the Karakoram hiking toward K2 mountain, and we went to K2 base camp and the other five base camps in Pakistan as well.

"So, the boys are fully used to having to these high altitudes, long treks, long days in the mountains and cold weather."

John is a secondary school teacher and Martina is a primary school teacher, both working in Berkshire.

The couple said education was very important to both of them and in Nepal schooling was "pretty bad, because it is so remote in some villages".

Ms Russell-Smith said: "We're trying to complete our challenge to try and create scholarships for some of the children."

She said they visited KhumJung, a secondary school in a small village not far from Everest base camp.

She said: "It was quite shocking to see, they are still lacking resources, the children are still struggling to gain an education."

"We were shocked by the size of the classroom, we have 30 kids in our classroom back home, they have up to 45 in a classroom and the room was half the size," John said.

"They are more like tin sheds, with tin roofs and wood panel sides which is very cold.

"The teacher we met there said the children 'snuggle up together in their seats to try and stay warm' because it can be very cold in winter which was having a difficult way to learn.

"It is it really opens your eyes to the difficulties for education in remote locations."

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