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| Local adventurer takes on the North Pole for Nepalese girls Vancouver adventure racer Pushpa Chandra will travel to the North Pole to compete in the “World’s Coolest Marathon”. The North Pole Marathon is an extreme event taking place on the shifting ice masses over the Geographic North Pole. Competitors will fly from the small island of Spitsbergen, Norway directly to the international North Pole Camp where they will undertake the 26 mile (42 kilometre) race. Pushpa is seeking to not only round out her already-impressive resume of marathons and ultramarathons, but also to create awareness for a school she is working to build in Nepal, the Canadian School for Nepalese Girls. Pushpa Chandra started her running career at an early age when she would run and walk for an hour to get to school in her native Fiji. After moving to Canada at the age of 16, Pushpa started running 5 and 10 kilometre races, eventually shifting to marathons, triathlons and ultramarathons. She recently became the only Canadian to run 100 kilometres in Antarctica, and sees the North Pole as a natural next venture.  As a former intensive care nurse who has done missionary work in some of the poorest areas of India, Pushpa strongly believes in the power of the human spirit to persevere, even when faced with hardship and pain. This pain manifested itself for Pushpa last year while competing in a high-altitude race in the Mount Everest region of Nepal. Despite being struck by pulmonary edema, a life-threatening accumulation of fluid in the lungs, she persevered to finish second in her category. While in Nepal, Pushpa was dismayed by the great inequality she observed in education opportunities for girls. In many developing countries, Nepal included, boys are sent to school while girls are often kept at home to work and marry at distressingly young ages. As Pushpa believed in her own strength to overcome the effects of altitude, she determined that she would do something to create opportunities for the girls of Nepal, essentially instilling the belief that they too can achieve their dreams. Hence the birth of the Canadian School for Nepalese Girls. The School is currently in the planning phases and Pushpa hopes to raise awareness and support for the project through her efforts at the North Pole. This is an auspicious year for the 7-year-old North Pole marathon as it marks the 100-year anniversary of the first human footprint on the pole by Robert Peary, an American explorer and US Navy officer and fellow explorer Matthew Henson. Like Peary and Henson, Pushpa and her fellow competitors will be contending with extreme cold temperatures and unpredictable ice surfaces. The field of competitors hail from all corners of the globe and are predominantly men. Pushpa is the sole Canadian registered for the marathon. Pushpa is currently seeking sponsorship assistance for participation in the North Pole Marathon. For further information or to pledge sponsorship for Pushpa Chandra’s North Pole Marathon expedition or the Canadian School for Nepalese Girls, please email pushpa@csngrun.com Hosted and maintained by: DPG Associates Web Design
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 A Canadian school for Napalese girls in the Khumbu region near the base of Mount Everest. |
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 To provide sustainable education opportunities for Nepalese girls who don’t have the resources or the chance to participate in a school regularly. This school, both the physical structure and the ongoing entity, will be created through collaborative Canadian efforts. |
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The seed of this vision came
