About
Helga Hengge
is an inspiring keynote speaker, author, and mountaineer. She is the first German woman to successfully climb Mount Everest and the Seven Summits. With her appearances at international conferences (such as AIRBUS, Daimler, BMW, IBM, Siemens) and talk shows she reaches a worldwide audience.
In her keynotes Helga takes her corporate audiences to the top of the highest mountains in the world linking the principles of success for outstanding challenges to the principles of success in business. Illustrated with spectacular images Helga shares her enthusiasm for the adventure of a great challenge and talks about leadership, the power of a team, the step-by-step ascent, dealing with setbacks, and the courage to step out and up to the summit.
Reaching the summits of the highest mountains in the world was the high point of an exciting career between the extremes of creative work and outstanding mountaineering achievement - Helga was born in Chicago and grew up near Munich, Germany, where she started her career at VOGUE. She moved to New York in 1991 to study philosophy, marketing, and film at New York University and worked as a fashion editor on international campaigns.
Helga is the author of numerous publications and gained wide popularity through her appearances in prime time talk shows. She has written a bestseller about her Mount Everest ascent, Mount Everest: Only the Sky Above.
Helga is currently living near Munich, Germany, pursuing her speaking career and new mountaineering challenges. She is married and has two children.
Tzombuk Lop-tha
9000 mud bricks
3000 rocks
24 large wooden crossbeams
300 small wooden crossbeams
4 doors
8 windows
1 gate
12 bamboo mats
and 20 sacks of cement
Tzombuk is located at 4,750m/15.600ft in the Rongbuk Valley on the Tibetan Plateau. There are 44 houses and one gompa in the small village at the foot of Mount Everest. The people of Tzombuk raise yaks, sheep and goats for their livelihood, because the village is located too high for agriculture. Most of the men are Yak-pas (Yakherders) who cross the Nangpa-La with their yak caravans to trade wares with the Sherpas in the Khumbu Valley in Nepal.
Building a school in Tzombuk
When we visited the village in the summer of 2001, there were 119 children living in Tzombuk, but there was no school and most of the children, and their parents, could neither read nor write. Traditionally, during the summer months, the older children take the sheep, goats, and yaks to graze in the neighboring valleys, while the younger kids help with household chores, fetching water from the spring and collecting yak dung and dried shrub for firewood.
The nearest school was in the village of Chödzom, a four-hour walk away, too far for the children from Tzombuk. With a local elementary school, all the children could study, the younger children in summer, the older ones in winter, and still support the daily workload of their families. That was Kassang's idea.
Kassang
is one of the three "village elders" and has been leading the Tzombuk school project. He is a Yak-Pa and highly respected in Tzombuk due to his work as a "Sherpa" during expeditions on Mount Everest and Cho Oyu. Kassang was on the basecamp team for our Everest expedition and we all grew very fond of him during the two months on the mountain. He was the first Yak-Pa to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 2001.
In the spring of 2001, I traveled to the Rongbuk Valley with photographer Tom Wool and visited Kassang and his family in Tzombuk. As we sat together that evening over yak curry, tsampa, and butter tea, we decided to build a school in the village. Tzang-bu and Tashi-Tzeba, Kassang's sons, were excited.
Tashi und Tashi-Tzeba
The next morning Tashi-Tzeba and his best fried Tashi went with us from house to house, to count the children and ask if everyone would help to build the school. The response was huge and so Tom sealed our idea with a "school-photo-without-school". The families provided their labor. Building materials, furnishings and school supplies were sponsored from the proceeds of my first book. The village community pays for the teachers' salaries.
Many thanks to all my readers and sponsors for donating so generously towards the school project. And thanks to Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, Ralf Dujmovits and Kari Kobler who visited Tzombuk on their way to Everest BC and delivered new funds from donations and book sales to the school.
Expeditions
Huascaran (6768m)
Chimborazo (6350m)
June 2012
Kora Mount Kailash
Ngga Pulu (4862m)
Mount Catherine (2629m)
