Encouraging tribal girls to scale new heights in Manali

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Kullu, May 18

Tribal students from 12 states are learning the sport of mountaineering through the Basic Mountaineering Course of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Mountaineering and Allied Sports (ABVIMAS) at Manali. The 26-day programme will go on till June 7.

In the training programme — launched by the National Education Society for Tribal Students (NESTS), an autonomous organisation established under Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) — the students will learn about mountaineering.

Five girl students from Madhya Pradesh — Jyotiraj Chauhan, Nandini Rawat, Golu Bhide, Raveena Mujalda and Mahima Akharey — are among the students participating in the course. These girl students of Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) have secured first position in the national sports competition of the EMRS. On the basis of their achievement, they have been selected for the course. The other trainees hail from various states of the country — Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Gujarat, Manipur, Odisha and Telangana. ABVIMAS director Avinash Negi said the trainees would get a chance to learn about the various techniques related to mountaineering and river crossing. They will also be educated on the types of snow and rocks, climate of the mountains, information and use of equipment and weather forecasting, he added. Many activities related to adventure sports would also be made available to them, he said. “After the training, they will also be given an opportunity to do mountaineering here, scaling a peak. The objective of this programme is to make the students experience mountaineering and adventure sports, increasing their interest towards it,” he added.

He said through the course, the students were also getting a chance to understand the culture and dialect of different states.