A Hyderabadi VJ Nagendar is getting ready to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise the funds for a social cause.

Getting into the details, Nagendar triggered a lot of pain and anger after listening to activist Sunitha Krishnan’s tales of exploitation of victims of human trafficking back in 2012 and decided to donate the money.

The tales dealt with the children as young as four found with their intestines hanging out, something in me said, 'This cannot happen'. They are not just statistics, behind those numbers are stories of pain, abuse and turmoil.

Donating money is the lazy option- Nagendar

"Everyone knows that prostitution exists, but I think what is missing is the human aspect to these stories. But donating money felt like the easiest and the laziest option to take for a cause that I feel so strongly about," explains Nagendar, who has absolutely no real experience in mountaineering, besides a five-hour trek he took in Scotland to scale a small peak and his childhood dream of "someday scaling all the seven summits" backing him.

For raising the funds, Nagendar has decided to climb the Mt. Kilimanjaro. “The intention climbing the mountain is not only to raise the funds, but also to spread an awareness about the human trafficking”, Nagendar said.

Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro is a risky attempt

In fact, he is taking it as a mission for eight days continuously. Being one of the seven summits, this volcanic mountain in Tanzania is the highest one in Africa at 5,895 meters above sea level. The terrain and the climate of this peak, changes every few meters. While it starts with a pleasant to hot rain forest kind of environment the temperatures dip close to minus 18 to minus 26.

Though the risks are very real for Nagendar, he admits, "I can die here. I could lose a finger or a toe to frostbite. And I have to think about my family that I care for back in Hyderabad. But I want people to understand that this is not something I am doing out of a whim, I feel that this kind of violence against women has to stop."

By Phani