LONDON: Arjun Bali, an Indian-origin
teenager from Buckinghamshire scaled the 20,000 feet Stok Kangri in the Ladakh
region of Himalayas to raise money for charity in Africa.
16-year-old Bali, a climbing enthusiast, is a resident of
Beaconsfield and completed the climb recently in aid of a fund set up by his
housemaster at his school.
He raised almost 4,000 pounds, which will
be used to support the WAMA Foundation, which provides orphaned Tanzanian girls
with a secondary education and Emusoi, a school that educates young girls from
the Massai community.
Bali, secretary the RJM Tanzania Project,
said: "We wanted to help out with education as it's something everyone takes for
granted. You go to school in this country until you are 16 at least - in other
parts of the world that's not the case."
"It was nice to feel when I
got to the top that I had really earned it and done something to help those
girls in Africa. A lot of these girls come from disadvantaged backgrounds where
they don't get given much of a chance.
"A lot have run away from
home after their parents have been trying to force them into marriage or
circumcisions. Some people there don't see the value of girls being educated,"
Bali said.
