Doug Scott CBE and the late Dougal Haston were the first British climbers to conquer Mount Everest on 24th September 1975. Doug later co-founded the charity Community Action Nepal. He wished to help the people from an “emotionally wealthy” country who have little in the way of wealth as we know it in the Western world – few educational opportunities, scant access to primary health care or clean water systems. After reaping the rewards from his visits to the country he felt he had to do something positive for the people of Nepal. He explains below:

It all started for me in 1962 , this travelling to remote places, hitch hiking to the Atlas Mountains, with friends from the Nottinghamshire Climbing Club.

Cicero said in the first century ‘that what has always fascinated man most is the unknown.’  I know that is true for me and for friends of mine in the climbing world and maybe it is for all of us.

Our second trip required more organisation as it was to the Tibesti Mountains of Chad in 1965. Six of us crossed the Sahara in an ex W.D. one ton truck and spent a fascinating five weeks with the Tibba and climbing 10,000 ft mountains. The following year I accepted the responsibility of taking 20 young people from Nottingham schools and youth clubs overland to the Cilo Dag mountains of Kurdistan right on the border with Turkey and Iraq. One trip led to the next, driven along by curiosity to see and experience the different lands and people in them as much as to climb even more difficult mountains.

All of us who went to Nepal used the services of Mike Cheyney and his Sherpa Cooperative, were impressed by the total altruism of the man and the effectiveness of his trekking agency. He ploughed back all the profits into the Cooperative for the benefit of the staff and porters and provided a friendly and sound service for British climbers and trekkers visiting Nepal. Mike died in 1986 and we had to use other agents who were not always as caring of their employees!

In 1989 whilst walking up to Kangchenjunga with various friends, I made a decision that would eventually associate me more intimately with the local hill people of High Asia. Sitting around the kitchen fire our Sherpas and porters were bemoaning the fact that the trekking industry in Nepal seemed to offer little security or return for all the hard work they put in. If they were injured or sick they didn’t get paid and all too often there was no regular wage, contract or job security. Some were even told by the trekking agencies in Kathmandu, “Why should we pay you when you’ll get tips from the foreigners”. If only they could set up their own co-operative then they would have a guaranteed and regular income and a chance to determine their own futures and that of their children.

We launched into organising treks with my old expedition staff and adopted the same principles that Mike Cheyney had laid down. Fifteen years on and several thousand trekkers later we have revamped our original operation into one that is more focused on community development and more closely associated with our charity Community Action Nepal (CAN).

In 1990 various mountaineers and myself climbed above the Choktoi Glacier in the Karakorum Mountains of Pakistan. On the way out we lost a porter who fell into the Braldu River. We spent three days in the village of Askole sorting out a death certificate with the authorities. We discovered that there was a 50% child mortality rate in the village resulting from enteritis from contaminated water. Over the next two years I was able to facilitate a clean water supply into Askole at eighteen points which dramatically reduced the number of children dying. This was relatively easy to organise and gave me the confidence to launch into projects in Nepal with the help of many friends. Now Community Action Treks Limited (CAT), many individuals and other organisations are supporting some 40 CAN projects currently underway in the middle hills of Nepal, mainly schools, health posts, clean water projects and other community strengthening schemes. We work very closely with the local village committees at all stages of our operations through our CAN office in Kathmandu. CAN directs all monies received in the UK out to Nepal where it is low profile and grass roots in its approach. Administration costs are kept to the minimum – our staff do not travel around in 4 x 4 jeeps nor run up huge bills in hotels and restaurant entertaining.

Generally we work on the principle that we are all on our separate journeys and none is more or less important than the other. It may at times seem that those with greater mobility and wealth are somehow more important than those who are more static and poor, as in a remote village in Nepal. This is wrong thinking, as everyone knows who has spent time with the local hill people of the world. Only the visitors’ feelings of self importance will prevent them knowing one very obvious fact - that the local hill people have as much to teach us, as we the outsider have to show them about the human condition, if not more so.

The material help we can bring to Nepal has to be carefully channelled in a ‘sustainable’ way. Sustainable development has been defined as ‘development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. To this end, we at Community Action Treks Limited are mindful that tourism is part of the global economy and workers in tourism can be left stranded without any income or back up from family if they have moved down from the hills to put all their eggs into the tourism basket. September 11^th 2001 did just this all over the world. It is important that CAT stays small enough to monitor the situation and ensure the CAT employees are assisted whenever there is a down turn in tourism. CAN similarly needs to develop carefully and responsibly with the ideal that income generating schemes with the strengthening of women’s groups and adult literacy programmes must follow improved health and education.

Doug Scott CBE