Educating Tibetan Bon Children and Youth

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your support this year. You have helped young men and women receive an education and a path to a better life – young people like the one who shared his experience with us.

 “When I was five my father taught me the Tibetan alphabet and to read and write using a wooden block as a book and a sharp bamboo stick as a pencil. We were poor, but my father valued education. Early one morning in 1987, when I was seven, my father and I left our home. We walked for several days to a town with an airstrip. There we took a small plane to another town, where we then got on a bus. After a three-day bus ride we arrived at the Menri Bon Monastery in Northern India.

 I came to the school to be a monk, but when I reached the monastery the Abbott sent me to school saying that I was too young to become a monk. I joined the Bon Children’s Welfare Center (BCWC) and for eight years I had the opportunity to live there and study at the Central School for Tibetan Children in Dholanji.

 Days became months, and months became years. I worked very hard in school and earned many prizes in drawing and handwriting competitions. In 4^th grade, I came in third in an all India bird drawing contest.

 In 1997 I completed the eighth grade and started to learn Tibetan Bon philosophy, as well as grammar, poetry, astrology, astronomy, traditional art and ritual practices. I had the opportunities to attend workshops at a number of monasteries and institutes throughout India. I became involved in the Emory Tibet Science Initiative and through that received a scholarship to study western science at Emory University.

 In May 2013, I graduated from Emory University and came back to Menri. I took my Geshe exams in March 2014. It is perhaps the greatest achievement of my life. Currently I am working in the library at the monastery. In my spare time I am writing a book about Buddhism and Biology. None of this would have been possible if my father had not brought me to the Bon Children’s Welfare Center. I will be forever grateful to him and BCWC.”

 Thank you again for your support for this work. The BCWC is helping orphans and poor children gain a high quality and therefore life-changing education. We have attached our year-end newsletter to this report and hope you will take a few minutes to read it.

• Year End Newsletter (PDF)