Babita Lama may be small and fragile, but she moves mountains. Providing health care in her native Humla would intimidate anyone, but for Babita, it's just in a day's work. The nearest functioning hospital from Humla is on the Indian border, a two-week walk over rugged mountains. The child mortality rate here is 300-three times the national average. Babita decided very early on that she didn't want to be a famous doctor in the capital, she wanted to help the people in the village where she was born.

And it took a decade of focussed work that allowed her to fulfil her dream. When she started out, with a one-room clinic in Humla's Turpa village, there was no shortage of patients: mostly children with acute respiratory infections and gastric disorders.

In 1994, she set up the Nepal Trust to manage community activities in Humla. Today, there are four Nepal Trust clinics which are run jointly with the district administration. School girls from grade eight to ten volunteer in the clinics and learn early basic health tips. But finding educated girls is difficult in Humla, so the trust made a small compromise-in their Limi clinic, a five-day walk from Simikot, they also train school boys.

"If I'd had somebody to guide me, I would have studied public health," says this mother-of-two of her only regret. Babita is now looking forward to handing over her clinics to the volunteers she has trained. There is one nagging worry: the insurgency has already pushed back the trust's programme of expansion by a year. But she's not deterred. "All you need is a sense of purpose and commitment," she tells us. "The rest will follow."