Mumbai, April 10: Ten tribal students from Vidharbha are making the headlines. These students will make their maiden attempt to scale the Mount Everest. The students are from three remote government ashram schools of Chandrapur district of Vidharbha region of Maharashtra. The students will leave for Kathmandu on Wednesday. In June last year, ‘Mission Shaurya’ was jointly undertaken by state government’s tribal department and the Chandrapur Collector with help from ace mountaineers Shekhar Babu from Telangana and Avinash and Vimla Deoskar from Nagpur, reported the Indian Express.

Initially 47 students selected for ‘Mission Shaurya’ including 10 girls. After the final round 10 students including three girls are selected for the mission. On April 3 the students will reach Lhasa, from where they start the mission and will return by June 5.

Manisha Dhurve (18), a tribal girl from Dewada Ashram School who is now selected to be a part of ‘Mission Shaurya’ told The Times of India, “Climbing Everest is the first serious goal of my life.” Manisha’s parents are farm labourers. Vimla Negi, manager of the tour while speaking to The Times of India said, “They were very shy and hesitant to mingle with others when they first came here. Now we have taught them basics of English and Hindi.”

The 10 students- Chhaya Atram, Shubham Pendore, Umakant Madavi, Vikas Soyam, Akash Atram, Pramesh Ale, Indu Kannake, Akash Madavi, Manisha Dhurve and Kavidas Katmode have never even heard the name, Mount Everest before getting selected for the mission. These 10 enthusiasts were trained in various institutions across the country. They underwent training sessions at Bhongir in Hyderabad for rock climbing, a mountaineering course at Darjeeling and advanced winter mountaineering course at Leh and Ladhak this January.

The students scaled peaks of 17,000 feet high so that they get acclimatised to the temperature of the Mount Everest at a height of 29,000 feet. Manisha Verma, principal secretary, tribal development department told The Times of India, “We had not announced the plan earlier as we did not wish to divert students’ attention.”

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 10, 2018 01:54 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).