Accomplishments

Kyitsel-ling Tibetan Children’s Education Center

Helped to establish Kyitsel-ling Tibetan Children’s Education Center, Clement Town, India. Today it is a thriving educational center providing lodging, board and supplementary education to over 120 children. Over the past 8 years Kyitsel-ling has touched the lives hundreds of children and we envision it will be of service to more than 1000 children over the next ten years.

TCEF Sponsorship Program

TCEF sponsorship program connects interested persons here in the West with needy Tibetan children that need help with their education. Nearly a hundred children from the poorest segments of the Tibetan community in exile receive a decent education through our sponsorship program. We have moved outside of Kyitsel-ling with our sponsorships and have recently included monks, nuns and elderly persons-in-need to our sponsorship program.

Raising Awareness of Tibetan Culture

We are dedicated to raising awareness of Tibet and the increasingly threatened Tibetan culture. Over the past several years we have organized the visits of Tibetan artists and helped facilitate the visits of Tibetan cultural ambasadors.

2003 - we helped facilitate the Montana visit of several Tibetan Buddhist Monks from the Tashi Llunpo Monastery in South India.

2005- In collaboration with several Montana non-profits, we organized the Tibetan Thangka Artists Project, which facilitated the visit of three Master Tibetan Thangka Artists.The artists presented a series of exhibitions and talks on this unique art form throughout Montana, the Pacific Northwest and Colorado, attended by over 1500 people. Some noteworthy venues were the Holter Museum of Art, Helena, MT, the Feathered Pipe Ranch, Helena, MT,Centrum, Port Townsend, WA and a month long artist residency at the Montana Artist Refugee, Basin, MT.

2006- We assisted Ewam Buddhist Sangha, Arlee, MT in organizing a four day Buddhist Film Festival in Missoula MT, along with the Missoula chapter of the Tarayana Foundation of Bhutan.

2007 -The Tibetan Carpet Weavers Project is well underway. We hope to bring three Tibetan women weavers from the exiled Tibetan community to demonstrate and exhibit the traditional methods and designs of Tibetan carpets.

Apart from the cultural tours, Karma Tensum, our Executive Director has toured the country extensively to speak about Tibet and Tibetan children’s educational needs. Over the past 4 years he has addressed numerous events at schools, universities, rotary clubs, museums, libraries, bussinesses and individual homes of event hosts.

Special Projects

With a generous grant from the GoodWorks Foundation, we introduced Computer Education at Dhondupling Tibetan School in North India. The program included the purchase of 30 computers, funding the salary of a Computer Education teacher for the first three years and incorporating Computer Education into the school curriculum.