The mountains are calling and I must go!” exclaimed John Muir, also known as “John of the Mountains”, an American author/environmental philosopher/naturalist and that’s exactly what I feel about Mt Rainier. I have always been fascinated by mountains, their stoic silent majesty attracts me. You cannot leave a mountain without bringing some of it away with you and leaving something of yourself upon it. I have climbed a few over the years but nothing as huge as Mt Rainier.
This summer, I would be accompanying about twenty other climbers to the summit of Rainier with the Asha group. This climb is not just for myself but also for a dear cause..
There might be only a few causes more dearer than those of children. Every child must have an education but there are a lot children in India that do not get a chance to learn for no fault of theirs. That child could have been you or me.Asha for Education is a non-profit organization mainly working for the education of such underprivileged children and thereby trying to achieve a socio-economic change in India. Asha in Sanskrit means desire or hope.
Asha’s “Climb for Asha” program aims to raise funding for its projects by encouraging people to get out and climb. It places special emphasis on the GRAVIS project, which works to improve the lives of villagers in the Thar Desert of the western state of Rajasthan in India, by focusing on schools for child and adult education, self-empowerment of the villagers especially women. It works on rural reconstruction projects, water security, gender equality among many other things in almost 850 rural communities across the state. Here are a few pictures of the communities helped by the projects.
These underprivileged children need our help and we can help by donating to Asha any amount for their projects. I have committed to raise a minimum of $1500 for the GRAVIS project. No amount is too less and help from you would be greatly appreciated. 100% of your donations would be used in the projects.
Note: If you donate using this page and your employer provides matching donations, please submit a match request to them too and let me know.
Check donations should be made to ‘Asha for Education‘. Please include ‘2016 Asha Climb Program – for Denis Joseph‘ on the check.
If you have want to learn more, please feel free to reach out to me or seattle@ashanet.org.