'The hardest thing wasn't Everest': How one Dubai resident changed hundreds of lives

Dubai: On most days, 49-year-old Maria Conceição finds herself juggling multiple tasks – she has to meet university admission deadlines, arrange for visas and tickets or attend graduation ceremonies. On other days, she is climbing literal mountains.

The Portuguese Dubai resident is a 10 times Guinness World Record holder and the first Portuguese woman to summit the highest peaks in the world, a keynote speaker and author of five books. She’s also the first Portuguese woman to complete the Explorers Grand Slam, which requires adventurers to reach the North and South Poles and summit the seven highest mountains in the world.

All this, so that she can raise awareness for a cause that has become her life’s mission for the past 16 years – helping underprivileged children access high-quality education and university scholarships.

She’s not new to the feeling of helping someone out of difficult circumstances. Her own life story started with the kindness of another woman.

“I was born in Portugal and raised by my adoptive mother, a cleaner who brought up seven children on her own. We did not have much, but we had love, resilience and a belief that hard work mattered,” she said.

Over time, though, her mother’s efforts ensured that Conceição had the opportunities that would change the course of her life. She moved to Dubai in 2003 and worked as cabin crew with Emirates, later being promoted to the VIP cabin crew team.

But after two years of flying to different cities in the world, a trip to Dhaka, Bangladesh, changed everything.

“People often assume the hardest thing I have ever done was climb Everest, K2 or Lhotse. The truth is that the moment that changed me happened long before any mountain,” she said.

“Walking through the slums of Dhaka, I met children who were every bit as intelligent, curious and capable as any child I had met anywhere in the world. The difference was not talent. The difference was opportunity,” she added.

She came back to Dubai and returned to work, but couldn’t stop wondering how their lives would be different if the children she had met just found an opportunity that would open doors for them.

“Eventually I realised I had a choice. I could pretend I had never seen what I had seen, or I could do something about it,” she said.

In 2011, she set up the Maria Cristina Foundation, named after her adoptive mother, and began working closely with communities in Dhaka, to help girls’ education.

“Over the years, more than 600 children have been supported through education. Many have become the first in their families to attend university. Some now live and work in Portugal, Australia and the UAE. Others are raising families of their own,” Conceição said.

The foundation also helps set up clinics in Dhaka, help with renovation of roads and facilities, conduct deworming campaigns for school students and set up sewing schools for mums looking to earn.

Last month, she was able to ensure 13 young people received acceptance letters from universities in Portugal and Malaysia.

Just last week, a young Nepalese girl Pemba started taking English language classes in Dubai, after a year of trying to come to Dubai to change her life.

Her introduction to Pemba happened last year, when she realised that she was running out of oxygen on the way down, after summiting Mt. Lhotse – the fourth highest mountain on earth.

“By chance I bumped into Dawa, who I had climbed K2 with. He saw that I was sick and gave me what little oxygen he had left. I’ll never know if that decision saved my life,” she said.

“Before we parted, he asked me for one favour – to help his sister-in-law, Pemba, have a new beginning and a chance at a better future,” she said.

That fresh start began this week, but there are hundreds of such stories that Conceição has been a part of over the years.

Her adventures – from running marathons to climbing mountains – are simply a way to draw attention to these stories, stories that she has documented in five books so far, with her sixth book on the way.

But it isn’t easy working with families in another country, facing difficult circumstances and making the bold choice of trying to change those circumstances. Administrative hurdles, for one, can derail or delay plans. Funding, too, is a challenge, as Conceição is constantly trying to push her limits to set new records and take on new challenges, with the funds supporting the foundation’s initiatives.

Speaking about the challenges she faces as an entrepreneur in the humanitarian field, she said: "Behind the photographs and headlines are years of uncertainty, setbacks and simply trying to keep going. Like many entrepreneurs, I spent years believing that if I just worked a little harder, climbed one more mountain, gave one more speech, helped one more student, perhaps the breakthrough was just around the corner. [But] life rarely follows a straight line."

Speaking about how global events like the recession or the pandemic can affect how much interest she is able to generate for her cause, the biggest trait that keeps her going is resilience.

"Resilience is not about never falling down. It is about getting up one more time when life knocks you down," she said.

The journey also becomes a lot easier because of the support she receives from Dubai's community, because another lesson she's learnt is more than funding, the biggest hurdle (and advantage) can be your network.

“One introduction can become an internship, a scholarship or a first job. One introduction can change the future of an entire family. The most important doors are opened by people who choose to introduce someone, recommend someone, or simply believe in someone enough to open a door,” she said.

That is why Conceição feels that operating in a city like Dubai has been a game changer.

“I honestly do not think the foundation would exist in its current form had I lived anywhere else,” she said.

“This city became the bridge between a girl from Portugal and children in Bangladesh. It connected people who wanted to help with children who simply needed a chance. When people ask me what makes Dubai stand out, I do not think about skyscrapers. It’s about possibilities. I have spent most of my adult life here and have watched people arrive with almost nothing and build extraordinary lives. For me, that is Dubai,” she added.

And the lives have been truly extraordinary – from children who grew up in slums walking across university graduation stages and young women changing the future for their entire families.

“One story that is particularly close to my heart happened very recently. I watched one of our students I met when she was just three weeks old prepare for her graduation. Last month, she became the first ever in her family and her village to graduate secondary school in a ceremony at Dubai Opera House,” she said.

And while the graduation itself was memorable, Conceição believes what matters more is what happens next – a butterfly effect that spreads the audacity of hope to others.

"A younger sister suddenly believes university is possible. A neighbour starts dreaming bigger. Another child living in the slums of the world sees someone from a similar background succeed and thinks, 'Maybe I can too.' That is how change happens," she said.

And even as the world sees Conceição break records and take on new challenges, her greatest achievement will always be something else: "Watching a young person discover that their future is bigger than the circumstances they were born into."