Educating Tibetan Bon Children and Youth

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The Bon are a minority Tibetan ethnic group that fled to India when the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1959. In 1968, the Bon established a community in Dolanji, India on donated land. Today, 75 Tibetan Bon families (including 300 children) are settled there. Bon families in Tibet, Nepal, and other borderlands of India want security and education for their children. Many families are poor, many children are orphaned or semi-orphaned, and their relatives are unable to provide for them. They turn to Menri Monastery and Redna Menling Nunnery for the children's care and education. Relatives and paid guides make arduous journeys to Menri with groups of children whom they entrust to the care of His Holiness Menri Trizin. No child is turned away, yet beyond the generosity of Western donors, the monastery has few resources for these children. There are now more than 350 Bon girls and boys from Tibet, India and Nepal under the care of YBMC. They stay in dormitories and attend the Tibetan Bon School in Dolanji. Under the education system in India, after the students finish the 10 grade, they can go on to college. There are now 34 students that have graduated from the Tibetan Bon school in Dolanji who are attending college in various places in India. All of the students who graduated last year are attending college now and the YBMC is working to encourage more to attend college after they graduate from the Tibetan Bon school.

This last year, YBMC was able to raise funds to take the 9th and 10th graders on a trip to Varanasi for 8 days. They visited museums, holy places, palaces and other famous places. They stayed in a guest house provided by one of the teachers, who had come from Dolanji, and cooked their own food. As they recorded in the journals that they kept, it was a very excellent experience for all of the students.