Background Info

In the summer of 2023, Jennifer Prugh, TCEF President, led a BTY retreat to Ladakh that included TCEF members – Roy Andes, Founder Secretary and Karma Tensum, Executive Director. On this trip, we visited two schools—the Rainbow School and the Jamyang Ling Model School—both of them in the Zanskar region. 

The Needs 

Jamyang Ling is a boarding school of about 150 students, most from the surrounding areas. They have classes from Kindergarten through grade 8. Once students complete grade 8, they are transferred to another school with whom Jamyang Ling has an active collaboration. 

Jamyang Ling School was founded in 1994 by Lungnag Youth Association, Zanskar with the generous support of Shambala Charitable Trust, Germany who continues to support the school. While we sensed that it was a vibrant community with alumni giving back as staff or management, we saw some real need. Most of the classrooms were very small. In many of them, there were no desks, and the children just sat on the floor on thin mats. The windows were small, and the ventilation and lighting were poor. We saw a real need to improve/upgrade all the classrooms in this school.

From the side of Jamyang Ling, Stanzin Lobzang, in consultation with key members of the school’s management, informed our group that their greatest need is infrastructure improvement. 

We think that instead of trying to repair and remodel the classrooms, it would perhaps be better served if we helped them construct ten new classrooms. So right now, this is where we are—we want to build ten new classrooms—larger rooms with bigger windows, better lighting, and ventilation. The initial estimate received for this project is $80,000

Jennifer Prugh gave the fundraising campaign a huge boost by creating a Facebook Birthday fundraiser that grossed over $6,000.

Our next big fundraiser for this project is a sand mandala and fundraising dinner event at Jennifer’s Breathe Together Yoga Studio, Los Gatos on July 27.