Maya Sherpa Project
The ‘Maya Sherpa Project’ is now the ‘Sherpa Education Project’.
Please go to the link below for more information.
Who is Maya Sherpa?
The project’s namesake is a Colorado girl, whose father is Sherpa and mother is American. Maya was only seven years old when she took her first trip to Nepal and attended a local school. She noticed that the children had no place to play and asked her parents if they could do something for her new friends. A playground couldn’t be built because the village is part of a UNESCO World Heritage site designation, but soccer nets and balls were donated. To continue to provide support for children, the Maya Sherpa Project was created in 2010.
Maya first trip to Nepal, age 7 
Maya 2018 trip to Nepal, age 17
Now in college, Maya recently traveled back to Nepal and was able to witness the growth of the non-profit’s reach. This now includes numerous projects: scholarships for girls and boys, a health clinic in her father’s native village, computers for young student monks in a Buddhist monastery, and special environmental projects. Maya’s dream to build a playground has grown into an organization that assists the Sherpa community in many ways.
Sonam Rita – Sherpa a MSP student with her mother 
Sherpa children in one of the original Edmund Hillary schools in the Khumbu region of Nepal 
Lhakpa Sherpa – girl supported by the MSP 
Kunsung Sherpa – sponsored student
Maya with Sherpa family from the Solukhumbu 
Students in class at school in Salleri 
Since 2012, the Maya Sherpa Project has committed to ongoing support for girls education
What is the “Project” in the Maya Sherpa Project?
The Maya Sherpa project is a Colorado based nonprofit that supports the Sherpa communities in the Everest region. These people are hard working and some families live with very little income, sporadically earning a wage in the relatively short tourist seasons. Most Sherpas practice subsistence farming and can hardly make ends meet, much less educate their children.
The Maya Sherpa Project is passionate about educating girls, as they are often the last to be sent to school. The following short documentary tells the story of this way of life and the benefit of having an educated population.
The Maya Sherpa Project supports Sherpa communities in other ways as well: secular education for young student monks in a Buddhist monastery, environmental projects–notably a consistent water supply in a remote village, providing education for older Sherpa students whose fathers died in the 2014 Everest avalanche, rebuilding schools and trails after the 2015 earthquakes.
Rebuilding a trail to a remote village destroyed in the 2015 earthquake 
Damage suffered at the Monastery’s water tank after a large boulder rolled down the hill during the 2015 earthquake. 
Maya with her father, Dawa and the monks at the Changmityang Monastery