Karma Sherpa grew up in a family of eight children in a remote region of the Himalayas, two hours from Mt. Everest Base Camp. His brother was a sherpa and brought a hiker by their family home on her way to the mountain. When she saw the need, she offered to support one of the children through school. Because Karma was younger, it was decided he would go to school – and the hiker from Colorado supported him all the way through college. When Karma returned to his village after college, everyone wanted to know what he was going to do to help their community, now that he was college educated. Karma had never considered this, and this is when the seeds for The Small World Nepal were planted. He began fundraising to build a school. Along his journey, he met and fell in love with Sonam, who had grown up in the same area and had a similar story. After Sonam’s parents died young, she was left at 14 to raise her siblings. She was also able to go to college with the support of a visitor to Nepal, and became a nurse. She and Karma have given back to their community exponentially since.

 
The Small World Nepal provides community support in many ways. They supports girls’ education, with over 100 girls currently in Kathmandu going to college to become doctors, lawyers, and dentists. They also run an orphanage in the village where they grew up, supporting the most vulnerable children who would otherwise be left to fend for themselves. Now, they grow up in a loving home and will be supported through their schooling so they can make a better life. They run the Seeds of Hope program, creating groups of women who learn agricultural methods and get a greenhouse to grow food. These women can feed their families and make income from what they grow. They are leaders in their community now, where they didn’t have a voice before. And they run health clinics for communities where getting care would be otherwise impossible.