Shannon Galpin founded Mountain2Mountain in November 2006. She spent the first two years researching and fundraising for other NGO’s working in mountainous regions in Pakistan and Nepal while sculpting her approach based on what she saw missing in the NGO world. Her interest focused on remote war torn regions where women’s oppression was the worst. Having first hand experience at violence against women, when she had a daughter in 2004, she realized she couldn’t live in a world where women were raped and instead of seeking justice, they often cast aside, or worse, jailed.
After becoming a mother, Shannon made the leap to make a serious commitment to philanthropy and Mountain2Mountain was born. Taking what little resources she had, she invested everything into developing Mountain2Mountain and began traveling to Afghanistan to see first hand if she could create a non profit that could truly empower women and children through education, training, and job creation. Frustrated by what she saw as failings by other NGO’s that saw literacy or medical clinics, or schools, as the end goals, Shannon labored to find a cyclical solution that looked at education and job training, and school building as the first steps towards the goal of sustainable community development and individual empowerment. Time after time she started small projects that could serve as starting blocks as she developed the benchmark programs that Mountain2Mountain strives to implement today.
Believing that connecting communities on both side of the equation was key to finding funding sources and longterm sustainability of Mountain2Mountain and the projects and programs in Afghanistan, she developed events that involved communities and education individuals through sport and photography. Continually focused on breaking barriers, in 2009 she became the first woman to mountain bike in Afghanistan, a country where women are not culturally allowed to ride bikes.
You can contact Shannon at: sgalpin@mountain2mountain.org
2 comments
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February 1, 2011 at 4:23 am
hugh snyder
Well Shannon, I am truly humbled by your efforts.I just noticed a small post from Niner bikes about your ride in Afghanistan .Obviously you are much more than a mtn biker.
It may interest you to look up TPRF.org it is a small humanitarian organization that helps provide emergency aid around the world but has created food for people programs where they provide self sustaining structures to prepare cook and feed children and adults of need in India ,Nepal and most recently I believe in Ghana Africa.
The contact person would be Linda Piscato.Perhaps you could find ways to partner with each other.I do not represent them in any way I am just a supporter and student of the founder a man named Prem Rawat
I hope to share your efforts with friends of mine ,especially women friends who no doubt will be inspired by your efforts.
Lastly how would one help contribute to your efforts .I see no provision to make a donation on this page.May Peace be with You.Hugh
February 1, 2011 at 4:28 am
Shannon Galpin
Hugh, thank you, I’m touched you took the time to reach out. Our website is http://www.mountain2mountain.org and if you felt so inclined, yes, support for our projects would be an amazing help. Thank you as well for sharing TPRF – I’ll check them out! Many many thanks.