The spirit of Sir Ed inspires team

MIKE SCOTT

Pain relief: Dr Julian Haszard and Dr Shekha Bhuva, from the United Kingdom, work on a patient in the SmileHigh dental clinic in Samagon.

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THE guiding hands of Sir Edmund Hillary are present in Samagon.

The iconic Kiwi has had such direct and indirect humanitarian influence throughout Nepal it even reaches this remote village near the Tibetan border.

SmileHigh co-founder Dr Mingma Nuru was a personal friend of Sir Edmund Hillary and is humbled by the contibution he made to the Sherpa people.

Inspired by the Kiwi climber to help others, Dr Mingma is trained to become a dentist and is now active throughout the year running programmes with international dentists and local specialists providing oral health care and education.

Dr Mingma Chhlring, a doctor working for the United Nations World Food Programme sponsored health clinic in Samagon, knows Sir Ed was not just a great man for New Zealand but also for his country.

It was a Hillary Trust scholarship that allowed him to do his university and medical training. To repay the opportunity he was given, Dr Chhlring plans to return to his home village of Phaplu to work.

Dr Julian Haszard, the Taranaki born co-founder of SmileHigh, recognises Sir Ed's influence his life.

"The thing is, drive comes from within and to do these things takes a lot of drive.

"I was inspired by Hillary at a very young age and that has created the drive and motivation to this." Building schools and hospitals, training doctors and dentists obviously shows Sir Ed's considerable impact on the well- being of people in Nepal, Dr Haszard said. But there is another influence at play.

Those people educated in the schools, sponsored by the Hillary Trust or even treated in hospitals are often inspired to repay the kindness. It is sad to say but very true by what is evident here in Samagon and in the Nubri Valley, there are still a lot of people in need.

And so, with a project like SmileHigh, the spirit of the great man, Sir Edmund Hillary, lives on in Nepal.

- © Fairfax NZ News