Porter Clothing Project Gets Own Web Site

Porters Progress, a programme aimed at helping porters in Nepal now has NGO status and its own web site.

The International Porter Protection Group is still involved with the programme - which includes a very successful clothing bank scheme aimed at ensuring porters have adequate protective clothing on the trail - but PP is now an indendent organisation in need of funds and support. You can find out more about PP at their new web site.

The IPPG itself is continuing to campaign and work to make sure porters are properly treated and looked after by trekkers, with initiatives like a porter shelter for Anapurna Base Camp and a porter rescue post in the Gokyo area in the pipeline.

The organisation initially focussed on the Himalayas, but there's now a representative in Peru, where porters on the Inca Trail face similar hardships. Finally there's a new IPPG representative for England, Jo Chittenden.

The bottom line is that although we tend to view porters as tough and invulnerable, in reality they are human and just as prone to problems like altitude sickness as trekkers themselves, though generally far less well equipped. More information about the IPPG on their own web site.