15/01/2024
The Seven Summit black women recommended by is the first Black African woman to climb Mount Everest & Mount Kilimanjaro
Khumalo is setting out to break more records, aiming to complete the Explorers Grand Slam by June
The expedition involves summiting all seven of the highest peaks on the seven continents, completing a technical rock climb and reaching the North Pole as well as the South Pole.
The From the very beginning of her mountaineering career, Khumalo was climbing for a purpose – indeed, her foundation is named Summits With a Purpose. In 2012, she climbed Kilimanjaro to raise money to build a library for Kids Haven, a home for street kids in Benoni, a poor town just outside Johannesburg. Following her ascent, she went to Kids Haven to give a programme, and afterwards a young Black girl said to her, “People like you don’t do this sort of thing.” Khumalo was stunned. “She meant Black people don’t do this sort of thing. And she was right. She’d never seen anyone like me.” That child changed life. “I decided I could not live in a world where we were limited – and worse, limiting ourselves – because of the colour of our skin. I have two sons. I needed to leave them a better world.”
In 2014, Khumalo attempted Everest for the first time, raising money for the Lunchbox Fund, a programme that provides school meals. The 2021 South Africa National Income Dynamics Study found that many people can’t afford food. Some 2.3 million households reported child hunger, and 40 percent of all South Africans of all age groups suffered from a lack of food. “You can’t learn if you’re hungry,” Khumalo says.
She was at Base Camp on April 18, 2014, when the Khumbu Icefall collapsed, killing 16 Sherpas. It was the end of that expedition, but Khumalo still managed to raise money to provide 60,000 school meals through the Lunchbox Fund.
She returned to Everest the next year to raise money for the Nelson Mandela School Library Project, which serves more than 200,000 kids. On April 25, 2015.
