About NNMGA
Nepal National Mountain Guide Association (NNMGA) is a member country representative of International Federation of Mountain Guide Association (UIAGM/IFMGA) in Nepal. It is a non-profit organization formed by professional mountain guides of Nepal. It was formally registered on 2005 April 4 under the NGO act 2034 with the Home Ministry of Nepal Government. Its goal is to unite the manpower involved in mountaineering profession and develop a standard of professional mountaineering activities which will provide additional economic support to the nation. NNMGA is committed towards producing skilled manpower through training programs conducted jointly with various institutions, agencies and organization at national and international level while adhering to the highest standard of teaching learning. There are currently 100 registered members of NNMGA, and 34 conditional members. As a guardian organization of all professional and aspiring mountain guides in Nepal, the activities carried out by NNMGA can be broadly categorizes as education and training, advocacy and lobbying for mountain workers and mountaineering, supporting the nation in economic development, assistance in rescue, expeditions and any other needs as sought by government and other parties, and networking.
Objectives
Background
The first foray of Nepalese into mountain work began in 1891 where they worked as support team members to sporadic international teams coming to survey the Nepali Himalayas. More Nepalis began working in the mountains since 1950s when Nepal formally opened its mountains for climbing. For the longest period of time, Nepalese mountaineers worked without any formal technical education relying solely on their ingenuity, bravery and experience.
It was only in the year 1979 when formal basic technical education on mountaineering was started in the country. The first ever mountaineering course was initiated by late Ales Kunaver of Slovenia in cooperation with some other countries of Europe at Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA).
This was followed by advance level climbing and mountaineering training program carried out jointly with National School of Ski and Alpinism (ENSA) Chamonix France. In joint initiation of NMA and ENSA, they managed to send selected Nepalese mountain guide to Chamonix, France to participate in the advance level training conducted by ENSA in 1982. By 2000, there were about 3 dozen Nepalese mountain guides trained from ENSA. Yves Pollet Villard Foundation (YPVF) stationed in France committed to be an active agency to support the professional mountain guide education in Nepal.
The urgency of equipping Nepalese mountain guides with sophisticated technology and imparting necessary information to them led a group of highly skilled mountain guides in Nepal to come together and establish NNMGA. Organizations and guides from France, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland as well as individuals from different countries lent valuable support and guidance during its formation process. The organization was established under the chairmanship of Late Iman Gurung at 2005 AD.
After its formation, NNMGA started formal mountain guide education under the supervision IFMGA representative. After continuous effort and diligently maintaining course module on par with required standards for 7 years, NNMGA finally received formal acceptance as Nepal’s country representative in IFMGA on 3rd May 2012.
Till date, NNMGA have produced 100 IFMGA, all of who are active in mountaineering industry national and internationally. Producing high quality professional mountaineering locally is the ultimate and never ending work of NNMGA.