A promise made in Dhaka. Kept on every summit since.
Maria Conceição is the first Portuguese woman to summit Everest and K2. She did not set out to be a climber. She set out to keep her word to a group of families in Dhaka, and climbing turned out to be the way.
The woman who taught her to finish.
Maria's mother left when she was two. She was raised in the Portuguese village of Avanca by Cristina, a widow and refugee from Angola who took her in as her seventh child.
Cristina had very little, but she left Maria a simple rule: if you begin something, you finish it properly. She died suddenly when Maria was nine. The rule stayed.
The foundation carries her name.
The layover that changed everything.
After working as a cleaner, Maria left Portugal and became cabin crew based in Dubai. In 2005, on a stopover in Bangladesh, she walked into one of Dhaka's poorest neighbourhoods and refused to look away.
She made the families a promise: she would help their children escape poverty through education. She founded a school, then a clinic and a sewing school for mothers, and arranged internships in Dubai so older students could support their families.
When the money ran out, she started running.
The 2008 financial crisis wiped out her sponsors. Families who depended on her would lose everything. Approaching forty, with no sporting background, Maria decided to become an endurance athlete and make the world pay attention.
That's when sports came to my rescue.
Maria Conceição
Every climb, for someone.
Each challenge was a way to fund the children's education. Here is how the promise has been kept so far.
- 2005
The promise
Maria commits to the families of a Dhaka slum and opens a school.
- 2011
North Pole
First Portuguese woman to trek to the North Pole. The Maria Cristina Foundation is registered in England & Wales.
- 2013
Everest, 21 May
First Portuguese woman to stand on the summit of the world's highest mountain.
- 2014–23
Ten Guinness World Records
Including seven marathons on seven continents in seven days, and the Explorers Grand Slam: the Seven Summits and both Poles.
- 2018
South Pole
An expedition aimed at funding school fees and meals for 40 children.
- 2024
K2
First Portuguese woman to summit the "savage mountain". Sponsored by Mashreq, with a campaign to sell 8,611 books, one for every metre.
- 2025
Lhotse, 22 May
Summit of the world's fourth-highest mountain, recorded in the Himalayan Database.
- Next
The remaining 8,000-metre peaks
Every future climb will run as a Summit Campaign with one clear goal for students.
The view from the top.
The summit of Everest.
Footage from the top of the world, filmed by Maria's team on the day she became the first Portuguese woman to stand there.
Watch Maria's full story in the DXB Unheard film (10:18).
Everyone has an Everest of their own.
Maria Conceição
Maria's Everest was a promise. Yours might be a staircase, a hill or a treadmill. Take on Your Everest this May.
Help her keep it.
Twenty years on, the promise is a scholarship programme. It runs on people who give every month.