Together We've Donated
1,836,047
School Days for Children In Nepal
Sherpa is adventure gear with a purpose.
Our vision is to inspire lives of adventure by exploring new lands and opening minds through learning.
Each product that you purchase provides a donation to Room to Read Nepal. This ‘Day of School’ donation is calculated based on the average daily total of the below costs across Room to Read’s education programming in Nepal.
What is a day of school?
- Teacher and Staff Members Training
- Building Libraries
Developing and Distributing Quality Reading Materials
Building Classrooms
We have partnered with the globally recognized charity, Room to Read.
Room to Read supports children in historically low income communities to develop foundational literacy skills, as well as life skills that promote gender equality. Room to Read envisions a world free from illiteracy and gender inequality, where children have room to read, learn and grow. As the first programme country, Room to Read has been working in Nepal for 20+ years to improve learning and life outcomes through education. Find out more about Room to Read here
Room to Read’s impact is driven by an integrated approach that helps children develop foundational skills and cultivate a love of learning. Key elements include:
High-quality learning materials and enriching learning environments: Room to Read works with governments, schools, and local partners to create engaging, child-centered learning environments. This includes providing culturally relevant, locally developed books, strengthening school and classroom libraries, and ensuring children have access to quality reading materials that help them to build literacy skills and a habit of reading.
Strengthening educator capacity: Room to Read equips teachers, librarians, and education stakeholders with evidence-based instructional practices, tools, and professional development opportunities that improve literacy instruction and library programming. Ongoing coaching, mentoring, and support help educators translate training into effective classroom practice and sustained improvements in student learning.
Partnering with communities and education systems: Room to Read collaborates with governments, schools, families, and communities to foster environments where children can learn and succeed. By building local ownership and strengthening education systems, Room to Read helps ensure that effective practices can be sustained and scaled to reach more children, more quickly.
Gender equality portfolio
In Nepal, Room to Read developed an evidence-based approach to identify girls who were at heightened risk of leaving school before completing their education. By analysing data collected through the Girls’ Education Program, Room to Read found that girls exhibiting certain risk factors were more than five times more likely to drop out than their peers.
These insights enabled earlier and more targeted support. Trained social mobilisers worked closely with girls, their families, and schools through home visits, regular monitoring, and individualised follow-up to help address challenges before they became barriers to learning. This included helping girls stay engaged with their studies, reconnecting them with missed lessons, and strengthening the support systems around them.
This data-informed approach reflects Room to Read’s commitment to using evidence to continuously improve programming and ensure that more adolescents can stay in school, build critical life skills, and pursue the futures they envision. Lessons from Nepal have helped inform and strengthen the Gender Equality Portfolio in other countries, contributing to more effective, scalable support for adolescents both in school and beyond.
In addition, the Sherpa Adventure Gear brand funds the educational scholarships of nine children in Nepal.
This scholarship scheme is a project that was initiated by Tashi Sherpa and the Sherpa family and has enabled a community of Nepali children from remote villages to benefit from fully funded boarding school education in Kathmandu. These scholarships cover primary and secondary schooling as well as incidental costs such as medical and subsistence.
These scholarships have closed to new admissions since the start of the Room to Read partnership, but the continued costs of the enrolled students are factored into the donation from every product sold to ensure that we continue to provide education to these nine children until they have all completed their secondary schooling.
Frequently Asked Questions
According to the National Assessment for Reading and Numeracy (NARN, 2024), 50.9 % of students indicate serious challenges in the basic decoding of letters, accuracy and reading speed. Meanwhile, only 9.7% of students have reached the expected oral reading fluency benchmark. Nepal's Multiple Cluster Survey 2024-25 also states that just 37.1% of children aged 7-14 demonstrate foundational reading skills.
In Nepal, approximately 770,000 children aged 5–17 (representing 10% of this age group) are out of school. The risk of being out of school declines throughout the primary years but rises from age 10 and again after age 13, coinciding with the transition to secondary education (Education and Inclusion in Nepal, National Statistics Office, 2021).
In this high-need context, we know that when a child learns how to read and write, they are better able to control their future. Our goal is to foster lifelong learning through independent reading, comprehension and writing skills.
Each product that you purchase provides a donation to Room to Read Nepal. This ‘Day of School’ donation is calculated based on the average daily total of the below costs across Room to Read’s education programming in Nepal, and is also aligned with the Government of Nepal's lesson hours for foundational literacy.
Teachers across Nepal are dedicated to supporting students, but many work with limited resources. While Nepal has a National Curriculum framework and curricula, schools face challenges in effective implementation due to limited teaching and learning materials, alongside uneven access to professional development for teachers.
Many students, particularly those who are living in low-income or marginalised communities, have limited access to age-appropriate reading materials and child-friendly learning environment at schools.
Sherpa's partnership with Room to Read is playing an important role in helping schools to access the resources they need to thrive.
Every day is different! All class sessions are formulated to capture a child's imagination and make learning fun, giving space for them to look forward to the next day of school and the next step in their learning. The model empowers teachers and educators to teach in the best way for their students. In addition to regular class time, each grade has a designated time for activities in the library. Here, librarians conduct reading activities with students such as read-aloud, paired reading, independent reading, and post-reading comprehension activities. Students also have the opportunity to check out books from the library to read at home.
Sherpa Adventure Gear partners with globally recognised charity Room to Read to provide programming and materials in Nepal. The organisation is dedicated to working with government schools to reach the most students and create scalable change. Room to Read partners closely with local communities and governments to develop their professional capacity, encouraging them to be active participants in the programme. This ensures their sense of ownership in sustaining and adopting initiatives that add to children's literacy.
Our funds impact schools throughout the Himalayan region and the Tarai flatlands of Nepal.
We support students through each year of primary school. Although ages vary, on average, students range from age 5 to age 11.
Our partner Room to Read works actively with each selected school for up to four years. The goal of the program is to set the school up for success to operate independently at a high level after the project period concludes. After the project period, they continue to assess the progress of students and teachers and offer support if needed.
Yes! We are committed to education in Nepal. Our partnership with Room to Read began in 2020 and we see this as a long-term commitment to making meaningful change.
Yes, we also support full scholarships for nine Sherpa students. Each are from remote villages and attend top boarding schools in Kathmandu. Sherpa Adventure Gear provides tuition, boarding, meals, clothing, school supplies and extra-curricular activities for the entirety of their education.
When you wear Sherpa Adventure Gear, you're helping to teach a child and create opportunity for a new generation.
