Messner Mountain Foundation

MMF – helping others to help themselves

Since simple mountain farmers saved his life on Nanga Parbat in 1970, Reinhold Messner has felt a special bond with the people there. For many years he has been organising help for the inhabitants of remote valleys around the “mountain of destiny” and other inaccessible mountain regions.

The Foundation

With his Messner Mountain Foundation, Reinhold Messner assumes social responsibility for mountain peoples. On the model of helping people to help themselves, the aim is to ensure the survival of the people living high up in the mountains of the Himalayas, Karakoram, Hindu Kush, Andes and Caucasus on the basis of agriculture and tourism.

The foundation’s Executive Board has the following members: Prof. Herbert Henzler, Dr Ulrich Cartellieri, Dr Jürgen Weber, Prof. Ulrich Lehner and Reinhold Messner. One project – a school in the Diamir Valley – has already been completed. A second project is also nearing completion, namely construction of Boulder Village in the Indus Valley (Pakistan) to accommodate the inhabitants of Tato und Muthat, whose villages in the Rakhiot Valley were destroyed by a terrible earthquake in November 2002. Earthquake disaster relief was also provided for the Alai Valley (2005) and Hushe Valley (2007). Aid is currently being supplied in the Hunza Valley following the catastrophic landslide in Attabad on 4 January 2010.

MMF – Messner Mountain Foundation donation account

under the auspices of Bridges Nachlassmanagement GmbH,
Oettingenstrasse 25, D-80538 Munich 

Tel. +49 89 242129
Fax +49 89 242129 10 

HypoVereinsbank AG München
IBAN DE53 7002 0270 0658 7534 44,
Swift Code/BIC HYVED EMMXXX

For further information, please contact Büro Reinhold Messner

Contact Büro Messner

THOUGHTS

“The people in the Diamir Valley in the Kashmir region of Pakistan saved my life in 1970 after I performed the first traverse of Nanga Parbat with my brother Günther. All together, I have spent about ten years of my life in Nepal, Bhutan, Peru and Tibet. I owe so much to the mountain peoples. Now I am giving something back.”

Reinhold Messner

CURRENT MMF PROJECTS

School for 50 children

Reinhold Messner is supporting a school construction project for 50 children in the Diamir Valley in the Kashmir region of Pakistan. That is where he was rescued by local people in 1970 after completing the first traverse of Nanga Parbat with his brother Günther. The dramatic scenes on the mountain and the death of his brother are described by Messner in his book “The Naked Mountain”.

The school – the first in this valley – is located at an altitude of about 2590 meters. The next school is a 12-hour walk away. Messner’s contribution will cover the salary for a teacher for the first five years. The then President Musharraf assured him that the Pakistani government would assume responsibility for the school after that.

Disaster relief in Pakistan

Pakistan's biggest flood disaster in the last 80 years has already killed thousands of people, and millions more are suffering from hunger and the spread of cholera and other deadly diseases. Maurizio Giuliano, a spokesman for the United Nations, told the Reuters news agency: “The challenges are absolutely enormous and the flooding is not yet over.” Countless bridges and roads have been destroyed, and an unprecedented effort is needed to transport emergency supplies and doctors to the remote valleys of the Karakoram Mountains. According to hikers and mountaineers returning from the area, the entire region is affected by the disaster.

The United Nations is coordinating the relief work but the organisation is overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the destruction. Only a fraction of the 6 million Pakistanis who urgently need food and safe drinking water have so far been supplied, while over a hundred thousand children are threatened by cholera. They need your help. The Reinhold Messner Foundation has been active in the valleys of northern Pakistan for many years, building schools and clinics there. The MMF helped the people of those remote valleys with the reconstruction work following the 2005 earthquake.