Squatting in his simple two-room home, Tsering serves tea and recounts the moment when he feared he might lose his grandson to the icy Zanskar river on a perilous trek to school.

"I was crossing the water and I had my grandson on my back," he says, pointing to the now 10-year-old Rigzin.

"The current caught me and took me off my feet."

Fortunately, another in their party was quick to grab the pair before they were swept away.

"The water was up to here on me," the 76-year-old says, gesturing at his waist.

"It happened in the Takmar. The water there sometimes comes up when there is not proper ice."

'I cannot tell you how difficult it is'

That was several years ago, as Tsering was shepherding his grandson to boarding school on a mid-winter journey along what is known as the Chadar trek.

The road winds from their village in one of the remotest parts of India.

During winter, this arduous and perilous journey — dependent on the river freezing solid — has traditionally been the only way to get children from the valley's high-altitude villages to boarding schools in the regional capital, Leh.

"Dangerous," Rigzin says, when asked what he remembers of the journey.

"So cold."

It has been called the world's most dangerous walk to school.

That's a hard claim to verify, but Tsering can only shake his head as he recalls the many hardships of the journey.

"I cannot tell you how difficult it is, all of the difficulties," he says.

"There's a danger you can slip and fall down the steep mountains.

"Sometimes we have to fix a rope and lower ourselves down."

Arduous journey through snow and ice

Tsering undertook the trek because there was no alternative if Rigzin was to obtain an education.

In winter, the high-elevation villages — many perched at altitudes above 4,000 metres — are cut off.

Snow and ice make the steep and rough 18-hour car journey from Leh impossible.

Such is the isolation and harshness of winter here that even though the Government has invested in schools, it struggles to find workers to staff or maintain them.

Examples of this problem aren't hard to find.

In the village of Shila-Pu, a couple of hours' walk from Zanskar's main town of Padum, a dilapidated two-room schoolhouse sits unused.

Ceiling panels are missing, the windows are broken, and scrawled in chalk on the swinging door is, "Welcome to school," and below it in broken English, "This close (sic)".

Need for centralised boarding house

But a small Australian charity is working to change the outlook for children here.

"We realised that there was a need for a centralised boarding house in this particular region," says Tamara Cannon, the founder of education-focused non-profit Lille Fro, which sponsors underprivileged children like Rigzin.

Now, after nearly 10 years of negotiating complex bureaucratic and political obstacles in this militarily-sensitive region, Ms Cannon's dream of building a hostel is finally set to materialise.

Authorities have granted permission and allocated land for the charity's locally-established trust to build a $400,000, 80-bed hostel.

It will have beds for students as well as accommodation for teachers, in a bid to make working in the region more attractive.

Tanvir Hemmat, an administrative officer who oversaw the land grant, said what Ms Cannon had accomplished in winning approval was significant.

"Definitely local people will benefit," he said.

"Fortunately, the Government helped Lille Fro for this purpose," he said, adding that "the process is very lengthy".

Geography, poverty, climate hinder access to education

Ms Cannon hopes the facility will be a home away from home for disadvantaged children who otherwise don't have access to schooling or healthcare.

"It's largely a combination of geography, poverty and climate," Ms Cannon says.

The former Sydney lawyer began organising education sponsorship for the region's children in 2008 after a trek left her wanting to help one family with their daughter's school fees.

Some of the arid mountains' sharp peaks reach above 7,000 metres, and numerous glaciers make the scenery breathtakingly beautiful.

However, the Zanskar's isolation means most families survive through subsistence agriculture; growing grain crops in the short summers, rearing sheep, cattle or yaks for milk and cheese, and collecting their dung to dry and burn for cooking and heating in winter.

Tsering does not have land and relies on odd jobs and a meagre pension of $8 a month to provide for his extended family; a partially blind wife, and his mentally disabled daughter — mother to Rigzin and a three-year-old girl, Stanzin.

"So for me it's really difficult," he admits.

'School is very important'

Thanks to sponsorship, Rigzin can now stay with his grandfather and attend a Swiss-founded school in Padum.

"I can feed him, wash his clothes and take him to school also and I feel relieved," Tsering says.

"School is important for my life," says Rigzin in simple but practiced English.

Asked what he'd like to be, he immediately answers "pilot".

But his grandfather worries he can't afford a place there for Rigzin's sister.

"We don't know who the father is," he laments.

Short summers mean building the boarding house will take three years at least, but Tsering is hopeful it will eventually bring more educational opportunities.

"If I don't put this child in school, it's not right," he says, feeding her tea and bread.

"School is very important. We have to send her to school."

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