The Porter Assistance Project seeks to:
 Provide independent trekkers, individual porters, and climbing companies with a convenient and inexpensive means of equipping their porters with high quality clothing.
Offer English language, First Aid, HIV/AIDS Awareness, and Money Management classes in order to motivate and empower porters.
Educate the tourist population about acceptable standards of porter treatment.
Porter Assistance Project offices in Kathmandu, Nepal, and Moshi, Tanzania stockpile water and wind resistant jackets and pants, quick-drying synthetic "base" layers, gloves, socks, hats, sunglasses, and footwear. The equipment, donated by manufacturers, ski schools, and individuals, is available for porters, trekkers/climbers, and tour operators to borrow to outfit their porters. All that is required is a small, refundable deposit.
Porters in Nepal and
Tanzania suffer exposure, frostbite and even death as a result of not being properly clothed for the high altitudes to which they climb
. In order to feed themselves and their families, they take on the job of carrying heavy loads to high elevations without warm clothes and sometimes without shoes! Whether you are traveling as an individual or you are running an expedition company, the Porter Assistance Project needs your help to assist Porters internationally.
Aren't Porters Adjusted to the Cold and Altitude?
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The majority of porters are not like the famous Sherpas who carry loads at altitude for foreign climbing expeditions. They are impoverished sustenance farmers who travel from lower elevations to trekking and expedition routes in search of work. Like trekkers and climbers, many porters suffer from altitude sickness, hypothermia, snow blindness, and frostbite. For example:
A porter was paid one days wage and sent down alone after suffering severe altitude sickness in the Everest region. |
| He was found in a state of collapse and brought to the Pheriche Aid Post, spent nine days in a coma, and had both feet partially amputated due to frostbite. |
Three porters, lacking proper clothing for a late season storm, died of hypothermia related causes when a powerful storm hit Mount Kilimanjaro in September 2002. One of the porters, suffering from the cold along the Machame camping route, decided to descend the mountain on his own. His body was later found at 12,630 feet, between the Shira and Baranco camps.
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How you can Help 'Carry
the Load'
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Carry clothing to Nepal or Tanzania : The Porter project is always looking for people and companies who will carry clothing to Nepal and Tanzania . Please contact us if you know anyone who can help.
Register your Company as a supporter of the Program: You are cordially invited to participate in the IMEC Partnership for Responsible Travel . All companies participating in this partnership program will be posted on the IMEC Web site and listed in IMEC newsletters. Tour operators are also invited to promote their participation in IMEC |
| Partnership for Responsible Travel through the use of our logo and materials. While this program is in no way a certification program, tour operators are encouraged to join the IMEC and numerous other companies already involved in this effort to educate tourists and improve working conditions for porters. |
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For more information
or to register your company, please contact us at info@mountainexplorers.org
Thank you!
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