mtnfund

Anytime any of you have questions you can post it here or contact me directly via The Mountain Fund site. Best to post here though so others can be informed too. Again, thank you all for such a wonderful, thoughtful discourse. scott

Post deleted by mtnfund

You are most welcome and I am happy to reply to any and all questions you have. I am in NM not the PNW and around 1500 units or so last time I counted. I am full time on loan to Mountain Fund and not really involved any more with my real estate company, www.macinc.net. It still pays me, for reasons unknown ;-) By the way, sorry to hear about your personal experiences. We are all closer to facing that then most of us will admit. The system is, or so it seems, set up to keep you from getting the benefits it is there to provide. In all the properties we manage we have a staff person who is an expert in the various government programs to help people figure out how to access the benefits that they have coming. It's one thing to be entitled, another to figure out the system and get anything. Your personal story I am afraid is all too typical.

Nice conversation here. To clarify and respond to a couple of your questions. This project is with the invitation of the Pakistan Alpine Club. They wanted assistance teaching women as social customs in Pakistan make it nearly impossible for men, which is nearly 100% of the Pakistan Alpine Club, to offer such instruction. This is an important thing for you to know, this is not a case of westerners going to Pakistan to tell them what they need. These women were invited to go. The idea of someones brother or other relative teaching is impractical. There will be as many as 100 women in the class with 15 actually doing a summit bid. To use local relatives would require a small army of brothers and cousins and, I think also in some ways perpetuate, however unintenionally, the myth that women cannot do what men can. Particularly in the mountains, this has been shown to be untrue. Having women as role models, as "what is possible" is a good thing. This is also not about westernizing anyone. The project is not at all interested in discussions of religion, customs or the relative rightness or wrongness of one society versus another. Pakistani's can sort these things out just fine on their own. The women guides are providing a technical teaching service which has been requested by Pakistan. Women do not all wear the berka, fyi. Greg Mortenson of the Central Asia Institute has demonstrated for over a decade that we westerners can educate women in Pakistan and not interfere with the norms of the country. Many men are in favor of education for the countries women. The religion of the country does not prohibit this per se, though some less moderate versions of the faith may not embrace it, the mainstream does. If you don't know about Greg, see this link, read his book, learn Greg Mortenson and Pakistan Yes, whomever asked, The Mountain Fund does work in the US. We support the Hike for Youth program in Denver that raises money every year for at-risk youth programs in that community. Our partnership with Osprey Packs, to "Pass on the Passion" has landed backpacks (50) in the hands of Outdoor Outreach, and excellent program in San Diego and the Maywood Organization in Wisconsin who runs outdoor programs for disadvantaged kids. We are currently talking to Outdoor Outreach about starting a program in partnership with them here in our hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico where at present no outdoor programs for at-risk youth operates. The reality of helping people in other countries is two-fold. First, as Greg Mortenson has shown decidely, if you want security at home, build schools, not bombs, it's simple, clear and effective. Because so much of the world is so poor, you can get a great deal of bang for the charity buck in places like Nepal, Pakistan, Peru and most of Central Asia. Seven out of ten of the world's poor, for example, live in SE Asia where average wages are less than $2.00 a day. Societies that have 85% of the population working as subsistence farmers (Nepal) on $2.00 a day or less can realize huge improvements in the quality of life, such as lower infant mortality rates and increased food security for very little money. The KFK clinic we run in Goljung,Nepal is a good example. For about $10,000 a year we provide primary health care to over 7,000 people. That's a small investment per person to bring basic health and public health services to three villages. One can argue all day about helping them versus helping us. I can tell you this much about us. Our poor live,for the most part, as well as the middle class in Nepal. My day job (how I afford to run Mountain Fund) is the management of 23 low-income housing projects in three states. For our residents we must maintain the physcial state of the property in near new condition at all times, provide supportive services and programs that add to the quality of life of our residents and spend more money on the maintenance and management of the property than any sane for-profit landlord would ever dream of. Our residents have access to food stamps, social security, food commodities programs, free or reduced cost transportation to doctors offices, medicare or medicaid supplements to offest medical costs and much, much more. Our residents, by the way, pay 30% of their income as rent, the Dept. of HUD pays the rest. (you) In places like Nepal there are no such safety nets for the poor. There isn't government housing, welfare, food stamps, etc. There isn't workers comp insurance either. When my friend Kul Bahadur lost half of both his feet to frostbite working as a porter there was nothing. He was of course not able to work as a porter with half of both fit missing. No one sent him checks to sustain him as a disabled person. No ADA rules made places of work accessible to him, no job training program taught him a new profession and helped him find work. Kul is married and has a family, he was the only source of support for this family. But, when Kul was injured there were no sources of support for him. We, even our poor, have it so much better here that one cannot even have a conversation that is intelligent about the relative status of our poor versus their poor. If you love the mountains, if you've ever been to Central Asia to climb, or Nepal or Peru you have seen first-hand the poverty and hopefully been moved to give something back to the countries that every year so graciously host our efforts to visit their mountains. That's what we are all about here at Mountain Fund. Since someone will sooner or later raise this issue, 90% of our income goes to support the programs we work with around the world. Only 10% supports us and as Dechristo already pointed out, we aren't paid. We don't even get our travel expenses paid to go to Nepal, or Peru, etc. My advice in closing - Don't just climb mountains --- MOVE THEM scott