Wasfia Nazreen

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Created on February 28, 2014

Wasfia Nazreen has scaled many incredibly steep summits, both figurative and literal. As a mountain-climber, she is internationally renowned for having become the youngest Bangladeshi and the first ‘one-woman team’ from Bangladesh to reach the peak of Everest. She is also the first (and only) Bangladeshi to have made it to the top of Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Western and Southern Hemispheres; the first Bangladeshi to scale Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in Europe; and the first Bangladeshi woman to reach the summit of Mount Vinson, Antarctica’s tallest mountain.

Wasfia’s upcoming book, Bangladesh on Seven Summits, reveals the personal and collective efforts poured into her odyssey and the motivation behind her exalted achievements. She was initially inspired to climb the Seven Summits as a way to highlight the strengths of her fellow Bangladeshis and to celebrate the progress made by women in Bangladesh over the country’s first four decades of independence. In addition, Wasfia is keen to protect and advance the rights of girls and women everywhere. Wasfia has established the Bangladesh on Seven Summits Foundation, which aims to empower underprivileged girls and women by offering them training in outdoor sports and access to activities beyond the usual scope of their lives.

A former social worker and student activist, Wasfia has long been involved in anti-war movements and has given time to humanitarian work around the world. She remains devoted to raising awareness of the plight of sex-workers, indigenous peoples, and other minority groups. She is an ambassador for Volunteer for Bangladesh, the largest network of Bangladeshi youth working for social change, and in 2012 she was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for BRAC, which has grown from its 1972 beginnings in a remote village in Bangladesh to become the largest development organization in the world. Overcoming all kinds of obstacles – cultural, social, economic, physical, and mental – Wasfia Nazreen exemplifies the courage and resilience of women around the world, and their astonishing potential to conquer monumental challenges.

You can hear more about Wasfia’s journey and her mission to highlight women’s progress in Bangladesh, in her TEDxDhaka talk.

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