Essilor Sun Solution, the Essilor Group division dedicated to plano sun lenses, supported the first 100 percent female expedition team to ever summit Mount Everest: Kanchhi Maya Tamang and her team went on an amazing journey to help defend gender equality and women’s empowerment in Nepal.

The expedition reached the summit of Mount Everest as part of an extraordinary undertaking to send a strong message for women’s empowerment. A group of six Nepalese women, led by Tamang, began climbing Everest from its southern flank on the Nepali side of the mountain. By conquering the world’s highest summit, standing at 8,848 meters, these climbers have proven to the world that women can take on any challenge.

Tamang is the first woman to reach the roof of the world; she is also the first woman to climb Mount Everest for an important cause. On the mountaintop, she raised a flag that read: “We are people, not property.” The message calls attention to the fight against human trafficking, for which women and girls in her region are particularly at risk.

During her speech after the return of the expedition, Tamang, herself a former victim of modern slavery, made a point of drawing attention to her fight for women’s empowerment and for gender equality in sports. “For many Nepali women and girls, there is an invisible Everest between their homes and the sports field. I have climbed Everest to empower women who are climbing their own mountains.”

The team received support from Essilor Sun Solution, which is featuring the Everest expedition as part of a new communication concept, “No Ordinary Stories.” In addition to providing financial support to the expedition and other projects, Essilor Sun Solution, with help from their sun brand partners, is supplying eyewear and lenses that are most appropriate for the special environments and conditions the athletes will be facing. Selected projects will produce videos known as “Crowd Stories” that are generated by the project owner that will chronicle his/her adventures and get disseminated on his/her personal social media as well as on those of Essilor Sun Solution and of its sun brand partners.

“Crowd Stories are based on real life projects screened and pre-selected from various crowdfunding platforms,” explains Christophe Mayet, vice president, marketing at Essilor Sun Solution. “The idea is to support No Ordinary Stories coming from passionate people. At Essilor Sun Solution, we help them live their passion even deeper by offering them No Ordinary Sunwear. Our first mission is to improve their lives by improving their sight and to constantly reinvent the magic of sun lenses.”

To learn more about No Ordinary Stories and the projects it supports, visit linkedin.com/company/essilor-sun-solution.

–Andrew Karp