The bank has been involved in preservation of our cultural heritage, conservation of Mt Everest and has also been helping flood victims and financing old-age homes. Recently, NIBL involved itself in Extreme Everest Expedition (EEE) 2010 campaign to collect garbage from the treacherous slopes of the tallest mountain in the world. [break]
Though several clean up campaigns have been organized on Everest in the past, none of them attempted to clean up the treacherous region above 8,000 meters which is also known as Death Zone.
Project director of the expedition Namgyal Sherpa, under the coordination of Chakra Karki, took the initiative and successfully completed. The team had 31 Sherpas, including 11 porters and 20 mountaineers.
“We took the initiative as the slopes of Everest are littered with heaps of garbage. We were alarmed after melting snow exposed the garbage,” Karki said.
And it is not just the Mt Everest that is covered with garbage, the situation is almost same in other popular mountains after more than six decades of mountaineering in the country. The expedition started on April 25 and lasted for about 50 days. The expedition has also made a documentary to raise awareness on increasing pollution in our mountains.
“We are in the process of completing post-production works. A producer from Los Angeles will give finishing touch to the documentary before it is made public in December,” said Shivant Pande, the head of CSR activities of NIBL.
Prithvi Bahadur Pande, chairman and chief executive officer director of the bank, said they particularly want to focus on school children, encouraging their awareness and motivating them through the documentary.
Apart from bringing down garbage, the team also raised awareness on environmental pollution, climate change and the urgent need to keep environment clean.
The team also brought back the bodies of two climbers - Swiss Gianni Goltz who died in 2008 and Russian Duganov Sergey who died this year -- having obtained the consent of their families.
“We are expecting some action from government to prevent the mountaineers from leaving the garbage up there. We shouldn´t let our mountains be so polluted,” Karki said.
“NIBL is planning to utilize the money collected from our charitable activities and focus more on the preservation of cultural heritage as a part of our CSR in the coming days,” NIBL´s CSR chief Pande said.
Related story
The allure of Nepali books
