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Apr 12, 2009 - 3:10:29
Sikkim, Zuluk Hostel Project
Zuluk Village
High in the Himalayan foothills of eastern Sikkim at 9430 feet lies the village of Zuluk. Once a pit stop on the ancient Silk route between Tibet, Sikkim, Bhutan and China it is now home to less than 600 people from approx 6o families. They are ethnic Tibetan and Nepali having migrated here in the 1960‘s in search of political freedom and the promise of a better life. They were given work in road construction which ended in 2002. Now the only work is road maintenance which employs 12 people. The children and elders do menial tasks for the soldiers in the army border camp in exchange for foods and oil.
The Sikkim government tried several years ago to improve the fertility of the soil by establishing an agricultural research farm. Unfortunately it failed due to the poor soil and severe weather. Today a meager crop of potatoes are grown and there are a few sheep grazing. Due to the proximity to the very sensitive border with Tibet, the village is heavily fenced by the military making grazing and access to the forests difficult. There is no running water and the entire village gets water from a town spigot in a mountain stream.
The houses in Zuluk VIllage are made primarily from stone and roofed with discarded corregated tin drums from road construction. Most of the roofs leak quite badly and there are holes in many of the walls. The inner walls are often lined with newspapers. Heat comes from old tin drums where wood is burned very conservatively. Cooking is on handmade clay stoves with wood fires. The living conditions are grossly substandard and in an extremely harsh climate. Most of the adult inhabitants are illiterate but they recognize that education breaks the cycle of poverty and therefore have a strong desire to educate their children.
In 2007 under the leadership of Lama Paljor and the assistance of the Shambhala Association of New Caledonia, funds were raised and an educational hostel was built in Padhamchen Village 10 kms beneath Zuluk. This allows for 50 boys and girls to regularly attend secondary school.The hostel was named the Sukhavati Boarding School.
The hostel is a two story building.The boys dormitory and a small functional kitchen are on the first floor. The second floor holds the girls dorms. Each dorm has toilet facilities and COLD running water Due to a lack of funds the dining room has not yet been built requiring all the children to eat in their dorms on their beds. The children are required to provide their own bedding and pay for their uniforms.
Currently there are two staff members , one man and one woman who all cook, clean and care for the children. The children are provided three meals a day of mostly dal, rice and vegetables.
Myself,TCEF board member Michael WIlling, and several other members of our group had the pleasure of accompanying Lama Paljor to Zuluk village and Padhemchen. We found the hostel to be a well built cement building measuring L-21m H-1.30m and
W 4.8m.It was clean and in good repair. There is a small gravel filled court yard in the front that could easily be made into a basketball court with a several bags of cement.
The children appeared happy and relatively healthy, most with runny noses. They were neatly dressed though their uniforms showed much wear and grime. Many children had rings of dirt around their necks and wrists, probably due to the lack of warm water in a cold climate.The children were excited to meet us being both shy and curious. We were treated to an enthusiastic performance of song and dance to mostly taped Bollywood style music. The children shared the few costumes with each other. We were there for the lunch program and there appeared to be ample food with kids easily able to have seconds. They did eat sitting together on their beds. We took this opportunity to interview and photograph each of the children.
Lama Paljor explained that this hostel has been supported by the Shambhala Association group in New Caledonia and their support will continue only until 2010. They arranged payments through the Gangtok Rotary Club.
Lama Paljor has applied for non profit status for the hostel under Zuluk Hostel non Profit, in 2007 and once approved he will apply for FRCO papers which will allow foreign donations.
As a result of communication between Karma, Tsering at Kyitsel-ling, Lama Paljor and Mike WIlling and Valerie Hellermann we were able to move 5 children from Zuluk to Kyitsel-ling. We were able to find immediate sponsorship for three of these children. There are 46 more to sponsor.
Feb 11, 2009 - 4:06:35
Culture Transmission Curriculum
There is no doubt that these initiatives have helped Tibetan children learn about their culture. At the same time, we feel that there is more that can and should be done. To the best of our knowledge, no graded, systematic body of knowledge has been collected to be part of a curriculum specifically planned for cultural transmission. TCEF wants research into all aspects of Tibetan culture, identify a series of Essential Understandings that Tibetan educators can agree on. Essential Understandings will be those core knowledge about Tibetan culture and Tibetan values that Tibetan educators agree on.
In the development and implementation of this project, we will learn from the collective experience of Tibetan education in exile, understand the challeges of cultural transmission and develop teaching/learning tools and activities that factor in these challenges. For example, most Tibetan children in exile live in India which has vast powers of assimilation. The popular youth culture of Bollywood and MTV is all pervasive and although Tibetans live in Tibetan settlements, they are always surrounded by the myriad of people, sound, sight and culture of India. Coupled with this is the fascination/ attraction on the part of the Tibetan youth (as indeed with most youth living in third world countries) for everything associated with the Western culture. With the ever increasing —use of the internet and the continued popularity of western cinema, the western cultural influence is equally strong. In this context, the challenge will be to develop teaching/learning activities that are interesting enough to compete with the other interests in the children’s lives. With the full understanding of these challenges, TCEF will develop a curriculum full of varied and interesting teaching/learning activities. We will use multiple medias – bring out children’s books, produce DVDs, develop multiple interactive web sites - all geared towards cultural transmission. We will make it as fun as possible for Tibetan children to learn about themselves and their culture as possible. These we feel will the crucial difference.
We believe it is important to preserve the Tibetan culture that is now threatened into extinction and perhaps the best way to do it, is to help transmit it to the Tibetan children. That is why we are truly excited about this project.
Feb 11, 2009 - 6:04:54
Grandparents sponsorship
The generation of Tibetans now in their seventies and eighties have suffered great tragedies and survived many challenges. It is this generation that followed HH The Dalai Lama into exile and crossed the Himalayas into an unknown land. Many of them were nomads or farmers with no work or language skills for them to start a new life in exile. Almost all of them started their new l Íives in exile breaking stones by the roadside at minimum wage.
It was a great change for them from the cool plateau of Tibet into the heat and humidity of India. Many of them did not survive – victims either to tuberculosis or their new found poverty. The Tibetan grandparents for whom we seek your help are the strong ones – the survivors. Many of them have depended on the ability for hard physical labor to survive. In old age they face an insurmountable challenge and that is why we seek your support. For $30 a month, you can provide much dignity and comfort.
Tibetan families are close knit and children and grandchildren do take care of their parents and grandparents. But, in cases where elderly Tibetan do not have family, they can be very vulnerable. Tibetans in exile do not have social security or a comparable old age pension scheme. That is why it is vital that we find support for them. The sponsorship funds help to purchase food, clothing, medicine and other essentials. It may help an elderly to go on a long wished for pilgrimage.
Out of the $30 that a sponsor contributes, $25 goes directly to the Tibetan grandparents that you sponsor. $5 goes into a reserve pool that enables us to immediately help deserving cases that our sponsorship committee in India forwards to us and to continue help to elders when sponsors for any reason do not or cannot send in their support.
Here are all the different ways that you can help a Tibetan elder in exile that needs help:.
Apr 12, 2009 - 12:00:59
Yuksom Norbu Gang Monastery Lunch Project
Dubdi Monastery School, Lunch Program, Yuksom Sikkim
Dubdi Monastic School ,formerly Norbu Gang Monastic School, located in Yuksom Village western Sikkim is where TCEF runs a lunch program for this small monastic school. There are between 24 -30 young monks from very poor families receiving their education here. This monastic school is a one room schoolhouse with no electric and no heat. There are few books that are shared between all the children and each child has only one thin notebook and they use their pencils down to tiny stubs.
I visited the school this February 2009 and I am happy to report the program is up and running well and these hungry boys truly appreciate their meals.
It is supervised by Nawang Bhutia of Yuksom, a very kind young man. Nawang has set up an accounting system for the program and has arranged for there to be three signers on the account; Nawang, Lama Tsering, and a village elder. This is for the assurance of the money being only used for this program.
This program has the added benefit of having created the job of cook for a villager Lakpa. Lakpa and his wife are quite poor but now have a promised income of 1500 rs per month plus we buy some vegetables from their small farm.
There is a small kitchen and storage area right near the school and a small fountain with running water. The kids are able to wash their hands in the fountain before eating. The kids must bring their own plates and spoons and wash them after eating. There is no place to eat other than the ground outside the small kitchen but they are happy to sit there on the ground to eat. The lunch consists of rice, dal, potatoes, tomatoes and papadams and there is enough food for the kids to have seconds. It was heartbreaking to see how hungry the children were but how great to have this program in place . Many are obviously very poor with tattered dirty sweaters, no socks, worn rubber shoes, some kids without sweaters or jackets in this cold damp climate. We are told this lunch is the most wholesome and substantial meal of the day for them.
Nawang and I visited the market and went over the prices of kilos of rice and dal, oil,spices etc and with all that we need including wood for the cooking fire and Lakpa’s salary, we can still run this program for $1550 per year. That is $4.30 per day to feed 30 kids! Amazing! My soy milk latte costs more!
Please consider assisting with this project . These hungry little boys are so grateful and you participate in changing their lives.
Feb 11, 2009 - 7:02:15
cultural center
We have a dream. TCEF would love to create a Tibetan cultural resource center somewhere in North America. One of the major concerns of the foundation is the survival of the rich culture of Tibet. In occupied Tibet there are currently over 7 million Chinese to 6 million Tibetans. The Tibetans living in occupied Tibet struggle to maintain their cultural identity, facing huge obstacles such as loss of language, loss of religious freedoms and the ratio of 7 million Chinese to 6 million Tibetans. They are marginalized in their homeland.
There are an estimated 150,00 Tibetan refugees living in diaspora, approx. 9,000 in the USA. These refugees have to assimilate with the culture of their new country,making it difficult to maintain traditions.
The intricacies of this cultural Buddhist society where everyday activities are guided by non violence, compassion and responsibility are a treasure to our world. The complex iconography in Tibetan, art ,architecture and rituals have been passed generation to generation in the tantric tradition. It would be such a devastating loss to the world to loose this,
So as a Tibetan would do, let’s visualize a TIBETAN CULTURAL CENTER, a place we can keep this culture alive with a library housing cultural information, science and medicinal texts, photographs, ethnographic items , a place for demonstrations of Tibetan art, carpet weaving, etc. Visualize Tibetans and westerners alike visiting this center to study and just enjoy “A View of Tibet” We are searching for a place to create this center. Perhaps one of you have an old farmhouse , family homestead or urban building that would be given a new life as a Cultural center. Let us know.
TCEF is a nonprofit 501C3 organization dedicated to Tibetan children, helping preserve their culture and function in the modern world.
