Pemba Doma Sherpa (7 July 1970 – 22 May 2007) of Namche-1 of Solukhumbu district.
She lost her parents when she was just two years old. Her grandparents took her in, raising her with love and stories of the great mountains that surrounded them.
Pemba was lucky enough to go to a school built by the famous climber Edmund Hillary. There, she learned about the world beyond her village and the importance of education. As she grew older, her love for the mountains only got stronger.
When Pemba became a young woman, she decided to do something that very few Nepali women had done before – she wanted to climb Mount Everest. It wasn’t easy. Many people thought women shouldn’t be climbers. But Pemba was determined.
In the year 2000, Pemba reached the top of Everest for the first time. She climbed from the north side, becoming the first Nepali woman to do so. Two years later, she did it again, this time from the south side. Pemba had proven that Nepali women could be great climbers too.
But Pemba didn’t just climb for herself. She started a charity to help children in Nepal get an education, no matter where they came from or how poor they were. She believed that every child deserved a chance to follow their dreams, just like she had.
She was also the leader of the Nepalese Woman Everest Expedition. Pemba continued to climb other big mountains. She reached the top of Cho Oyu in 2005, and in 2007, she set out to climb Lhotse, another giant peak near Everest. Sadly, this was to be Pemba’s last climb. On May 22, 2007, while coming down from the summit of Lhotse, Pemba fell.
It was a terrible accident, and Pemba didn’t survive.
She was only 36 years old and had done so much in her short life. Other climbers, especially women from Nepal, remembered how Pemba had shown them that they too could reach great heights.
Even though Pemba is gone, her story lives on.
She showed the world that a girl from a small village in Nepal could touch the sky. Her bravery and kindness continue to inspire people, reminding us all to reach for our dreams and to help others do the same.
