The WOP-The Walk On Project Foundation and the Mendi Film Festival Association are awarding the WOP Mendi Film 2023 Foundation Award to Edurne Pasaban, mountaineer and businesswoman from Tolosa, Gipuzkoa. She is first woman to complete the 14 eight-thousanders, the highest mountains on the planet. The award ceremony is going to take place at the Opening Ceremony of the 16th edition of BBK Mendi Film Bilbao Bizkaia, on December the 8th 2023, at the Euskalduna Congress Centre in Bilbao.

This award recognises the defence and dissemination of the values of mountaineering, and is now in its 10th edition. Edurne Pasaban will join the brilliant cast of personalities and entities that have been involved in it:

 

The WOP-The Walk On Project Foundation, a social enterprise that fights neurodegenerative diseases through various activities, is celebrates the choice of this year’s award winner:

“It is an honour for us to distinguish Edurne Pasaban Lizarribar with the WOP Mendi Film Foundation Award. This award recognises her person and her values as a beacon and example that serve as a social inspiration. Edurne has developed a sporting activity of the highest international level in the world of mountaineering, in which women, as in so many other areas of our society, have had to make an effort and demonstrate more than what is required of men.

Authenticity, commitment, tenacity, effort, breaking pre-set limits have guided Edurne’s steps in the mountains. In addition to these values, she is committed to the context in which she has developed her passion for mountaineering and which has crystallised in the form of a Foundation in the Himalayas.

And finally, Edurne is, through her teaching, an example of the struggle for the pursuit of happiness based on the recognition and visibility of our own fragility.

For all these reasons, we are thrilled and proud to present Edurne Pasaban with the WOP Mendi Film Award for the defence and transmission of the social values of mountaineering".

 

Edurne Pasaban Lizarribar

Edurne Pasaban Lizarribar (Tolosa, 1973), completed the list of the 14 highest mountains on the planet, the 14 eight-thousanders, between 2001 and 2010, being the first woman to achieve such a feat, a challenge for history.

Among the many official recognitions she received at the time, are the Spanish Gold Medal for sporting merit, the Queen Leticia National Sports Award, the Universal Basque Award, and the Lan Onari Award from the Basque Government.

Edurne currently combines her sporting career with her professional career as a lecturer and coach in both national and international companies. She organises talks, training sessions and tailor-made workshops in which she accompanies teams and individuals towards their own goals through her experiences as a mountaineer.

Edurne also has her caring side, for all those people who have given so much to her during her years in the Himalayas. She is the patron and founder of Mountaineers for Himalayas by Edurne Pasaban, where she works for the development of projects related to the education of children in the Himalayas.

She has actively participated in many of the editions of the Mendi Film, either presenting films, as a lecturer, and as a fan of cinema and mountain culture.