After becoming the youngest tribal woman to scale Mount Everest at age 13, Malavath Poorna from Telangana added yet another feather to her by becoming the world’s first and youngest tribal woman to scale the four highest mountain peaks located in four continents of the world.
"My goal is to make the state of Telangana and India proud by becoming the youngest tribal woman in the world to scale the seven tallest mountain peaks across all the seven continents," said Poorna after the summit of Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina, the highest mountain peak in the Southern and Western Hemisphere.
Speaking after she scaled the peak on Friday, Poorna said, “I cannot even describe how difficult the climb was. It was much more difficult than Everest but I resolved to go ahead with the mission. The Swaeroes Ten Commandments taught me not to give up, no matter what the circumstances are.”
The Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS), to which Poorna belongs to, ensures that several hundred underprivileged and Tribal students are selected for top institutes across the country including the IITs and the NITs.
Based on the ideologies of Jyothi Rao Phule and Dr. B R Ambedkar, the alunimi of the Society began the SWAEROES movement, which seeks to empower and emancipate those who come from similar backgrounds, with the help of ten commandments. The ‘SW’ in SWAROES stands for social welfare, while the AROES refers to the sky, suggesting that the sky is the limit.
Poorna, who said she was ecstatic about holding India’s tricolor atop the mountain, further said, “I have so far conquered Mt. Everest (Asia), Mt. Kilimanjaro (Africa), Mt. Elbrus (Europe) and Mt. Aconcagua (South America). Now, I set my eyes on scaling the remaining three highest peaks in the remaining three continents on the planet; Mt. Denali (North America), Vinson Massif (Antarctica) and Kosciuszko (Australia)."
Dr RS Praveen Kumar, Secretary, TSWREIS, congratulated Poorna on her "awe-inspiring and incredible mountaineering expeditions at a young age".
"What makes her feat unique is that she hails from a poor tribal community, and her parents Laxmi and Devidas work as agricultural labourers in Pakala village of Nizamabad district. Poorna has become a role model and source of inspiration for millions of marginalised girls throughout the world," Praveen said in a statement. Sekhar Babu, Director, Transcend Adventures, sponsored the expedition trip.
After Poorna had first scaled Mt Everest, a film was also made based on the expedition.