Liza Avelino arrived in Hong Kong to work as domestic worker in Hong Kong in 1996 at the age of 23.
More than 20 years later, she may have remained in her chosen profession but Avelino has also brought accomplishments for both personal and on behalf of the rest of household service workers. Recently, in April, she conquered the Mount Everest Base camp in Nepal, at 5,360 meters, just 600 meters short of reaching the top of Island Peak in eastern Himalayas, a June 2017 article in Around DB magazine reported recently.
“I thought if you go up to one of the highest points in the world, you’re on top of the world,” she told the magazine, which serves residents of Hong Kong’s Discovery Bay, Tung Chung and South Lantau districts.
Never been a hiking enthusiast before arriving in Hong Kong, Avelino in 2000 stumbled upon a book about the history of Second World War battlefields and their relics found on hiking trails of Hong Kong.
Liza Avelino on Mount Yarigatake in Japan.
Avelino only heard about these stories from her grandfather who was a war veteran, on how he had to hide and survive at caves during wartime.
“I couldn’t understand this as a child and so I wanted to see it for myself,” she told the website HK01.com on how she was inspired to complete all of Hong Kong’s trails.
While her friends were either too tired from weekly domestic chores or not permitted by employers for fear of getting injured and unable to do their duties, Avelino had to hike alone.
In 2006, her second employer suggested she join the Hong Kong Trampers, where Avelino was the only Filipina domestic helper among a group of professionals. The group led Avelino to take up greater challenges and led her to conquer even more higher summits. From Hong Kong’s Wong Nai Chung Gap, Mount Davis (269 meters), Sharp Peak (468 meters), Mount Baldy, California (1,278 meters), and Island Peak of the Himalayas, Liza Avelino has scaled them all.