Objective Mont Blanc ! Climb 2021
What if mountain sports were a key to integration for refugees and a beacon of hope of a better future?
First refugees at the top of Mont Blanc
After six months of assiduous training in hiking and mountaineering with the YAMBI team, Sikou, a 23-year-old asylum seeker from Mali, Jomah Khan and Qambar, 23 and 26-year-old refugees from Afghanistan, became, on September 23, 2021, the first refugees to climb the highest peak of Europe.
Professional mountain guides, our ambassadors Marion Haerty (four-time world champion freeride snowboarder) and Léo Slemett (world champion freeride skier) as well as our godmother Dr. Christine Janin (first French woman to have climbed the Everest) accompanied them throughout this adventure. They helped them prepare physically and mentally and Marion and Leo even climbed the Mont Blanc with them.
The ascent
Through this sports challenge and the transmission of values conveyed by the high mountain activities, such as mutual assistance, perseverance, resilience, listening to others and their environment, this project aims to :
- Help refugees overcome the ordeal of asylum and strengthen their self-esteem, self-confidence, thirst for success, desire to integrate and to be actors of their lives again;
- To help deconstruct prejudices and highlight the benefits of collaboration, living together and cultural enrichment.
This adventure has not been easy. The capricious weather forced us to cancel several training sessions as well as to postpone our ascent - initially planned for July 22 - to the end of September without any certainty that the weather will be more clement on these new dates. Sikou, Qambar and Jomah Khan did not lose hope and believed in their dream until the end. When the time came, the whole team was rewarded for their courage and determination by exceptional weather conditions.
Pierre-Idris Mehdi, high mountain guide :
"The adventure went wonderfully well with the young refugees from YAMBI. The weather was just great, very little wind, very good temperatures and above all, not a single rock fall in the famous Goûter couloir. Departure 6h30 from the Tête Rousse hut, all the lights were green this time. From the beginning of the ascent, Sikou, Jomah Khan and Qambar had stars in their eyes, with only one objective, to reach the summit as quickly as possible to accomplish this magnificent project. The preparation they have been doing for months was immediately felt. They were all at ease on all the terrains we encountered during the climb. With crampons, without crampons, on snow, on rock...It was really cool to see that they all had given themselves the means to succeed. After a few quick breaks, we were able to step on the summit of Mont-Blanc at around 12:45 pm, some of them with tears of joy, others with tears of happiness. Today, they all sold us a dream for our next years as guides. They deserve this Mont-Blanc 200%. I hope that they will all be able to transpose this success into their daily lives. I hope they will remember that hard work always pays off and that they are all capable of succeeding and accomplishing their dreams. I can't wait to accompany them in other high mountain projects as some of them already had new stars in their eyes when they looked at the panorama from the roof of the Alps. Hats off to the champions again!"
Sikou:
"We did it, we did it! Before, for me, climbing Mont Blanc was a dream and now it's done. It's an incredible memory that I will keep in my mind for the rest of my life. We had difficulties to realize this adventure but we hung on, we held on until the end, now it's done, it's an immense pride. During the ascent, I kept telling myself "we're going to make it, we're going to make it", I'm so proud. When I arrived at the top, I thought of my mother, I told myself that she would be very proud of me, I was very moved. I had warned her but I had not given her the exact date so that she would not worry, she would have been very afraid otherwise. I was so moved at the top, I cried. For me, climbing this mountain and holding up the flag of Mali, it means a lot.... This adventure gives me a lot of courage for the future. I will never forget that moment when we arrived at the top all together, never, never. Yambi is like my second family. Today, I tell myself that despite the difficulties, you must always believe in your dreams, go forward step by step and hold on.
Clélia Compas, founder of YAMBI :
"It was an unforgettable moment of exchange and sharing. It was probably one of those moments in life that leave a lasting impression on us. When we arrived at the top, we threw ourselves into each other's arms. Sikou started to cry, which made us all cry. Even the guides cried. It was very strong. Until recently it was a dream, now it is a memory that we will cherish for a long time. And it's time to think about tomorrow. To help other young people to realize their dream too.
A collaborative documentary will keep track of this human and sporting adventure. It will raise public awareness of the cause of refugees by exploiting the strength of the symbolic parallel between the effort required to climb Mont Blanc and the difficulty of the path to integration into a welcoming society.
The participants
JOMAH KHAN, the dreamer
Originally from Bamiyan, the capital of Hazarajat in Afghanistan, Jomah Khan, 23 years old, is a mountain man born at an altitude of 2500 meters. He belongs to the third ethnic group of the country, the Hazaras. Unlike the rest of the Afghan people, the Hazaras are Shiites, which has always opposed them to the Pashtuns, the majority group in Afghanistan, who are Sunnis.
The existence of the Hazaras has always been very complicated. They are victims of kidnapping, massacres and persecution. Despite an improvement in their status in the 1970s, the arrival of the Taliban, then later the Islamic State, and Al Qaeda plunged the ethnic group back into the horror of war.
Jomah Khan left Kabul at the age of 18 and spent three and a half years in Sweden before being denied political refugee status. Fearing that he would be repatriated to Afghanistan, he finally arrived in France where he hoped this time that fate would be more favorable to him.
When we started training, Jomah Khan was still an asylum seeker and was not allowed to work. The Mont Blanc project was a way for him to give meaning to his life, to get out of his loneliness, and to regain confidence in himself and in the future. In May 2021, as we were driving home from a training session in the mountains, Jomah Khan asked us if we could stop by the post office to pick up a registered letter. In that letter was his deliverance. After more than two years of waiting in France and almost six years after his departure from Afghanistan, Jomah Khan finally obtained his political refugee status allowing him to stay in France. The YAMBI team had the chance and the privilege to be with him when he learned the news. What an emotional moment...
Now that Jomah Khan has his refugee papers, he has the right to work, to get a driver's license, to rent an apartment... All those essential things in life that were forbidden to him for almost six years. He can finally look forward to the future and start building his life in France. We accompany him in this new step of his journey. We have helped him find his first job as a waiter in a restaurant in Annecy, and we are financing his driving license so that he can become autonomous.
Jomah Khan is determined to integrate in Haute-Savoie, this region of France that he loves so much. He has the determination of those who have lost everything and want to rebuild. As for the Swedish he speaks almost fluently today, he never walks around without his notebook where he writes down every new French word he hears. Standing on the roof of the Alps, at the top of his new home, was for Jomah Khan a real revenge on life. He remembers from this adventure that everything is possible in life and that you should never stop believing in your dreams.
QAMBAR, the champion
Like Jomah Khan, Qambar, 26, is Afghan and belongs to the Hazara ethnic group. He too has fled his country, the Taliban, the Islamic State and persecution. Shy and reserved, Qambar remains vague about the painful trials he went through to reach France in 2017. After a stint in La Roche-Sur-Foron, Qambar moved to Annecy and has been living there for 2 years.
His request for protection by the French government was accepted, and since then he has been doing a series of odd jobs. Forced to leave school at 8 years old to help his family, Qambar dreams of becoming a hairdresser. We help him to catch up with his schooling and to be able to one day obtain the hairdressing diploma he so much dreams of.
Sport is his escape, it is what allows him to evacuate, to overcome the anxieties of everyday life. He trains every day with determination and perseverance. Running to escape the past, to show that he is ready for the next stage of his life. To run to be, in the eyes of the walkers, a man like any other.
Today, Qambar has a more settled life and his own apartment. He is even considered a "star" in Annecy's small Afghan refugee community thanks to his athletic exploits. In particular, since 2018 he has participated in the Maxi Race, the Maxi Snow and the Sainte Lyon. Qambar also runs regularly for charities helping disabled people.
This summit of Mont Blanc was for Qambar a new sporting objective with this crazy desire to run for a living and to be considered like the others. Usually very reserved, he could not contain his tears of joy at the summit of Mont Blanc. Climbing the highest roof in Europe was a way for Qambar to prove to himself that he too is capable of great things in life.
SIKOU, the hard worker
Barely out of his teens, Sikou, 23, sees no other option than to leave his native Mali to escape the communal massacres that are multiplying in a context of civil war and the push of armed Islamist groups. Originally from a small village in the Kayes region, on the border with Senegal and Mauritania, he takes the road, alone, in the direction of Morocco through the Sahara, leaving all that is familiar to him behind.
That's when he tries his luck on the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, an invisible wall where many others leave their lives in the hope of a better life. Victorious in the crossing, he arrives in Paris in January 2019 where he files his asylum application. Finally, he arrived!
But months go by and Sikou receives no news about his asylum application. Assisted by an association, he left the unsanitary and dangerous camps in the north-east of Paris to go to Annecy, where he was housed in the same hostel as his friend Jomah Khan.
Sikou is waiting... He has been waiting for two years now. In spite of his desire and his unfailing motivation, Sikou does not have the authorization to work legally on French soil. This forced inactivity is very hard for him to live. "It is not normal to be 23 years old and not to work", he confides to us. To overcome his boredom, Sikou gets involved wherever he can. One day he volunteers in a mobile cinema association, the next day in a parish in Annecy to help prepare mass and do the cleaning. Having a perfect command of French, he does not hesitate to help his fellow students in the home with their administrative tasks. He also participates in awareness-raising sessions for refugees in vocational high schools.
Sikou wants to start a professional activity as soon as possible as a mason or an electrician. The mountains are his decompression valve, allowing him to escape and forget his problems for a while.
The Mont Blanc project gave him a way out of his loneliness and a reason to get up in the morning. Every day he would write to us and ask us to go work out. We enrolled him in the gym where he spent up to 3 hours a day in the weeks leading up to the ascent. When we ask him what the Mont Blanc project means to him, he often answers that it means "everything", that this project has "saved" him, and that YAMBI has become his "second family". We now hope that Sikou will obtain his refugee status and that he will be allowed to stay in France. One thing is sure, we will accompany him until the end, because that is what being a family is all about...
The images of the adventure, from training to the summit :
