“My reason for climbing Mount Everest was to show that girls can achieve anything.”
Malavath Poorna (also known as North Malavath, Purna Malavath and Poorna Malavath) was born on June 10, 2000. She is an Indian mountaineer and the youngest girl in the world to climb Mount Everest at the age of 13 years and 11 months. He climbed to the highest peak of Mount Everest. Poorna comes from a very poor family as both her parents are agricultural workers in the village of Pakala in Telangana state in India and earn less than 5,000 rupees a month. Her talent was discovered by Dr. RS Praveen Kumar, an IPS officer who first saw her during a climbing training in Bhongir, Telangana. Under the able guidance of trainer Shekhar Babu, who trained her for 8 months, she was selected from 10 students from 300 wellness schools and sent to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling. As part of his preparation, he climbed Mount Renock at 17,000 feet in the Kangchenjunga mountain range in the Himalayas and the mountains around Ladakh at -35 degrees Celsius. On May 25, 2014, she along with S. Anand Kumar, a 16-year-old boy and a group of Sherpas climbed the highest peak of Mount Everest after a 52-day expedition from the Tibetan side because the Nepalese government does not allow climbers under 16 years of age.
After the expedition, he had the opportunity to meet with the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, where they received certificates. Telangana Chief Minister Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) gave 25 thousand rupees each, five acres of farmland each, and a two-bedroom house for each family with necessary assistance for their education. Later, he climbed Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in Russia and Europe on July 27, 2017 at around 10 a.m. (IST). A movie based on her life called Poorna: Courage Has No Limit was released in 2017 and was directed by Rahul Bose.
Her goal is to scale the seven highest peaks located on seven continents and to date she has scaled six highest mountain peaks on six continents, making her the world’s first and youngest tribal woman. By the age of 18, he had set foot on the six highest mountain peaks on six continents, including Mount Everest (Asia, 2014), Mount Kilimanjaro (Africa, 2016), Mount Elbrus (Europe, 2017), Mount Aconcagua (South America, 2019), Mount Carstensz (Oceania, 2019) and Mount Vinson Massif (Antarctica, 2019).
An inspiration to many young women Poorna is currently pursuing an undergraduate course at Minnesota State University, USA, as a fellow student of the Global Undergraduate Exchange Program.