Golok Interviews: Thupten Nyima Tadra School in Amdo by Thaglha Gyal

• Report rights infringement
• published: 28 May 2013
• views: 3034

རྨ་ཡུལ་ཀུན་གླེང་། གླེང་གཞི། མགོ་ལོག་རྟ་བྲག་དྭ་ཕྲུག་སློབ་གྲྭ། མགོ་ལོག་རྟ་བྲག་དྭ་ཕྲུག་སློབ་གྲྭའི་སློབ་གཙོ། རྟའུ་ཐུབ་བསྟན་ཉི་མ། སྒྲིག་ཁྲིད་པ། སྟག་ལྷ་རྒྱལ། The Second Tadra-Project in Amdo Golok The Tadra Project was brought into being on 9 December 1995 by Dr. L. Palden Tawo, his wife. The aim of the project was to improve both the terrible circumstances of the orphans and abandoned children in Eastern Tibet and the utterly unsatisfactory education and health systems. The First Orphans, 1997 State-run schools The few existing state-run schools were dilapidated and wholly inadequate. There was a lack of motivated and qualified teachers and suitable teaching materials were often insufficient. Young Tibetans were dying of minor illnesses such as appendicitis or gastric ulcers. The closest decent hospital is a good six hours' journey from Dawu by car and thus almost inaccessible for most Tibetans. Moreover, a normal Tibetan cannot afford the cost of medical treatment. This explains why there is a relatively high number of orphans to be found in this region. State-Run School in Drango, 1997 Children's village project After six privately funded investigative journeys and several exploratory discussions with the Chinese authorities concerned, we succeeded in gaining official permission to go ahead with our children's village project in Eastern Tibet in 1997. However, despite many years of negotiation with the authorities, the hospital project was unfortunately not approved. In nine years we were successful in making swift progress with the infrastructure of the children's village in Kham, which was completed in 2005 according to the basic design. In the meantime, 180 orphans or children who have lost one parent live in our children's village and are cared for by foster parents. The children come from all over Eastern Tibet, a catchment area that is larger than Germany. The number of children living in our children's village continues to grow annually. Some of our Childrens now Second children's village in Amdo We experienced difficulties with the authorities when we wanted to take in orphans from the former Tibetan province of Amdo in our children's village. We should first mention that Eastern Tibet has been divided into four different districts that have been integrated in the various bordering Chinese provinces. Kham and Amdo no longer officially exist in their original forms. Hence, the authorities do not approve of our bringing together children from different regions of Tibet, although our aims are of a purely humanitarian nature. Living conditions in Amdo are considerably harder than in Kham. The average altitude of 4200 m above sea level with sparse vegetation and temperatures of below 30°C in winter take their toll every year -- above all among the abandoned children. As a result, we have many orphans and abandoned children from this region on our waiting list. This was the reason why we began construction of a second children's village in Amdo at the beginning of 2005 upon receiving official approval after two years of negotiation with the authorities there.