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Sponsor a Boarder
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B23a Tsomo girl 10 years
Class: 4
Tsomo is already partly sponsored but needs extra support.
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B33 Tsering Dolma girl 15 years Class 6
Tsering Dolma lost her sponsor.
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B106 Tsering Yudon Girl Age: 8 Class: Special Opportunity
Tsering Yuden is from a village called Lhi, which lies in Gorkha district in the northwestern part of Nepal, bordering Tibet. Nubri is a very remote area with no infrastructure. There are no roads, no airstrips, no running water, sanitation or electricity. There are services such as health care or education.
Nubri is at an extremely high altitude so it is cold throughout much of the year. Winters are harsh and long and the growing season is very short. There is no irrigation, so crops are dependent on rainfall and at these altitudes only barley and potoatoes thrive.
Nubri people live hand to mouth, so Tsering Yudon’’s parents can not afford to send her to school. They could not even afford the small user fees (uniforms, textbooks, school supplies and examination fees) that are needed at government schools...if there were a government school in Lhi.
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B108 Pemba Bhote Girl 4 years Class: Nursery
Pemba Bhote is from Taplejung distric at high altitude. The villagers live without services we take for granted in developed countries: transportation, communication, electricity, education and health care.
Pemba's father died when she was very young, so her mother was left on her own, trying to support Pemba and her siblings. Her mum is a farmer, she only owns a very little piece of land which cannot yield much. Her mum labours very hard from early in the morning till late in the evening still, they live from hand to mouth. Pemba’s life in the village is very hard and full of misery. She never has enough to eat and schooling is completely out of the question. There is no money.
Pemba’s uncle, Karma Chungda who is a monk inThrangu Monastery referred this little girl to SMD School in order to make her future bright with the power of education and the teachings of the Buddha.
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B112 Tenzin Norbu Boy Age: 4 Class: Nursery
Tenzin Norbu is from Dzum, a secret valley in Gorkha district, which lies in northern Nepal, close to Tibet. Tsum (also spelled 'Dzum') is extremely remote and very high altitude, much of it is above 14,000 feet. The people of Tsum live the traditional lifestyle of the Himalayas, working as seasonal nomads and subsistence farmers. Tsum inaccessible except on foot. It takes more than a week to trek into their village.
Himalayan villages on the Nepal side of the massif are totally undeveloped and Tsum is no different.In fact, life in the mountains of Nepal is like the 15th century. There are no services... health, education, transportation, electricity, and sanitation are all lacking. Villages have to walk to (or be carried) to Kathmandu for medical care.
More than half of Nepal's 75 districts are food deficit. In the mountains it’s always worse. In Tsum, hunger is a way of life. The food deficit is life-threatening, particularly for the very young, the very old and pregnant mothers. Tsum is also part of the “goitre belt” of Nepal...all along the high reaches of the Himalayas, people are still dying from iodine deficiency.
Men in particular, give in to despair, and if they do, they sometimes drink. Tenzin Norbu’s father is an alcoholic and doesn’t look after his family well. Alcholism is a scourge in Himalayan villages. It destroys many lives. Most of our children have a very dim view of drink. Tenzin Norbu is under his mother’s care, but she suffers recurring bouts of mental illness, perhaps a measure of her desperation. We've taken Tenzin Norbu into school, where he is doing very well. |
B113 Dorje Sherpa Boy 4 years Class: Nursery
Dorje Sherpa is from Tatopani which touches the border of Tibet. His family is very poor. His mother is uneducated so she does menial work to try to support her family. Their income is so little that they can't even access good sanitation. Dorje’s parents cannot to educate their son, so Dorje has joined SMD School this year.
This little boy is quite accustomed to having his own way in everything and is finding the adjustment to school life a little challenging. He threw a tantrum one afternoon...all the children were discombobulated by the noise, but they are so kind! Droves came to see what was wrong and how they could help Dorje. The problem? He grabbed something that belonged to an older child. The rest of the kids were terrified (small ones) or amused (older ones). They never see such displays of temper.
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B114 Gyaltsen Boy Age: 6 yrs
Class: Nursery
Gyaltsen is from Dolpa (Dolpo) an extremely remote, high altitude region in northwestern Nepal. Dolpo bordersTibet and is cut off from the rest of Nepal for several months every winter. Dolpo, along with other high altitude enclaves on the Nepal side of the Himalayas, are considered the last pockets of pure Tibetan culture. Their Buddhist way life continues as it has done for centuries, protected by its inaccessibility.
Dolpo folk lead an uncertain life in a high-altitude (12 to 15,000 feet) desert. Most are nomadic yak herders. Some are subsistence farmers. Their lives are entirely dependent on the weather. A few years ago, many yaks suffocated in an unusually heavy snowfall. That meant no animals to do the heavy work, and no milk. The people of Dolpo starved later that year.
Himalayan people build dry stone huts, without windows and without any ventilation. Most of Dolpo is not treed, so the people use yak dung for cooking, as a result many suffer from lung and eye problems caused by ambient smoke. Chronic food shortage, brings great hardship to the Himalays. Mountan people rarely receive the government subsidies to which they are entitled. They are deprived of education, health care and other basic amenities.
Gyaltsen is the third child in his family. You can see him in the photo, numbered “3”. He is in the row of children on the right, in the faded red outfit. Shortly after this photo was taken, Gyaltsen’s dad (holding the reins) fell and died. He is the 4th father who has died in a fall in the past 5 years.
Gyaltsen’s mother was left to manage everything, an impossible task. (When a father is missing, Himalayan children’s survival chances are cut 50%.) Gyaltsen’s mum has to look after 5 kids & do the farming by herself. His uncle used to look after them but unfortunately, he also died in an accident.
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B117 Sangmo Phuntsok Boy 8 years Class: Special Junior
Sangmo Phuntsok is from a village called Nar which lies high in the north, high in the Himalayan region of Nepal in a district called Manang. Like all Himalayan districts in Nepal, Manang is remote and totally undeveloped.
Sangmo Phuntsok’s parents are subsistence farmers. They have no access to running water and cannot irrigate, so they depend upon the weather for their crops. Sometimes the rains fail and their fields don’t yield enough, then they starve. Even in a good year, the people of Nar can only raise enough to last 3 to months.
In recent years, cordyceps, a Himalayan fungus, long used in Tibetan and Chinese medicine has become famous as an aphrodisiac. Villagers can earn a lot from it. Narpas began to go to the alpine slopes to collect as much as they could. If lucky in the harvest, they could ensure that there would be enough food for the rest of the year, no matter what happened with the crops.
Lowlanders began to crowd in on the harvest and it turned into conflict. Sadly, two people were killed. The Maoists (with their parallel government & judicial system) visited the village after that and tried to figure out what was going on but nobody was willing to tell them what had happened so they imprisoned all the men of village.
It's been a year. 19 are still in prison. Their children are starving. A small child’s survival is cut in half when the father is missing. Mothers and the elderly are left to do the heavy work. All the kids we’ve taken in from Nar are in very poor condition, Sangmo Phuntsok among them.
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B119 Karma Choesang Boy 14 years Class: Special Junior
Karma Choesang is from a village called Nar which lies in the northwestern region of Nepal (near the Tibetan border) in Manang district. It takes one day by bus and a minimum 4 days’ trek to get Nar from the Kathmandu valley.
Manang is one of the most food deficit districts in the hungriest country in Asia. Hunger in Nar is extreme. Traditionally, Narpas are herders and subsistence farmers but most of Manang is high altitude desert, so the land yields enough to last only 3 to 4 months in a good year. Narpas grow crops like wheat, barley and so on and herd yaks, horses and goats. They live without running water, electricity and sanitation. There is no health care. Every year many people die from hunger and the lack of medical care.
A year ago, a fight broke out in Nar. It was about a Himalayan fungus (cordyceps) known in Nepal as yarsaghumba, long famed in Tibetan and Chinese medicine, and which in recent years, has gained notoriety as an aphrodisiac. For a few years, the people of Nar were able to harvest the fungus on the alpine slopes above their village. With a few weeks’ harvest of yarsaghumba they were able to feed their families for the entire year.
Last year, lowlanders crowded in to reap the bonanza. A fight broke out and two were killed. Later, the Maoists came up to the village and (enforcing their parallel government) took a member from each family, especially the strong ones, to devasting effect on the people's living. They were taken to prison, Karma Choesang’s father, among them. A year later, 19 are still in prison and their children are starving. That’s why we gave priority to children from Nar this year, even if they weren’t on our Waiting List.
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B120 Tashi Dhondup Boy 8 years Class: Special Junior
Tashi Dhondup is from a village called Lho. It lies in Nubri in the northwest of Gorkha district. Lho is very remote and completely undeveloped. It is one of the most severely food deficit regions in Nepal.
The family very poor. They survive through subsistence farming, but Nubri is subject to extreme weather. The inclines are steep and rocky and the land is not really a favorable for agriculture. Most people are seasonal nomads, but Tashi Dhondup’s family are too poor to keep animals.
No one is educated in his family so they don’t have much hope to earn their living by working in a town or city. His parents really want him to study and help himself and the family, but they have no source of income to pay for his schooing. All schools in Nepal cost money, if only for uniforms, books, exam fees and bribes for the teachers to do their jobs.
Though he is just 8 years old, he had to work before he came to us. He had to go to the fields with his parents, and into the forest to collect firewood and he had to take care of his siblings as well.
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B120 Tashi Dhondup Boy 8 years Class: Special Junior
Tashi Dhondup is from a village called Lho. It lies in Nubri in the northwest of Gorkha district. Lho is very remote and completely undeveloped. It is one of the most severely food deficit regions in Nepal.
The family very poor. They survive through subsistence farming, but Nubri is subject to extreme weather. The inclines are steep and rocky and the land is not really a favorable for agriculture. Most people are seasonal nomads, but Tashi Dhondup’s family are too poor to keep animals.
No one is educated in his family so they don’t have much hope to earn their living by working in a town or city. His parents really want him to study and help himself and the family, but they have no source of income to pay for his schooing. All schools in Nepal cost money, if only for uniforms, books, exam fees and bribes for the teachers to do their jobs.
Though he is just 8 years old, he had to work before he came to us. He had to go to the fields with his parents, and into the forest to collect firewood and he had to take care of his siblings as well.
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B125 Tashi Dolma Gurung Girl 10 years Class: Special Junior
Tashi Dolma is from a district called Manang which lies in the northern part of Nepal. Her mother passed away when she was very young so she did not get a mother’s care; her father is working as a farmer and is always in the fields.
Tashi Dolma really wants to study. She understands that with an education, she can change the state of her life, and maybe when she’s older, help her father. There are no schools in her village and even if there were, her father wouldn’t be able to pay the user fees needed, even in government schools, fees for books, school supplies, exams and bribes to make the teacher do their jobs.
Tashi Dolma has been placed in one of our two Special Opportunity classes meant for late starters who come with no education. The pupil-teacher ratio is kept low, and extra language support is provided because, unlike Himalayan children most of our teachers are high caste Hindus (it is they who are educted in this country) who speak Nepali.
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B126 Tsewang Choden Girl Age:6 Class: L.K.G.
Tsewang Choden is from Dzum, Gorkha district. When Tsewang Choden was born, her father refused to acknowledge his own daughter. It is the tradition in the village that a child born before marriage is treated very badly and she has to tolerate all different kind of rumours, swear words from relatives and the other villagers. Tsewang Choden’s only chance at a decent future is to be away from the ignorance she is surrounded by.
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B128 Karma Jangchub Girl 11 years Class: Special Junior
Karma Jangchub is a girl from Nar, a village which lies in the northwestern region of Nepal in Manang district. Nar is in the rainshadow of the Himalayas, so it’s extremely arid. It’s also very high altitude and subject to extreme weather. Remote from the capital and the interests of the elite, Manang, like all Himalayan districts has been totally neglected by successive government. It is completely undeveloped; there are are no roads, airstrips and so services such as running water, sanitation, electricity, health care or education.
Karma Jangchub’s parents Nangsal Kunzom are subsistence farmers. There is no surplus water for irrigation in Manang, so they are entirely dependent upon the vagaries of weather to water their crops. In a good year, they can raise enough to last only 3 or 4 months.
There is no schoo in the village, so Karma Jangchub’s only chance study is with us. Karma Jangchub’s relative, Lhakpa Khamsum is monk in Nar monastery. We got information about her through him.
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B371a Dev Raj boy 16 years
Class 8
Dev Raj also lost his sponsor.
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B422a Tsering Norbu boy 15 years Class 7
Tsering Norbu's sponsors quit. |
B516 Lhakpa Tsewang boy 13
Class 4
Lhakpa Tsewang is partially sponsored, but needs more support. |
Menla Tsering Gurung B519 Boy Age: 8 Class 1
Menla Tsering needs $200 US/year |
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B522 Tenzin Diki girl 10 years Class 3
Looks like she lost her sponsors, too. |
B609a Yangchen Dolma girl 9 Class 1
Yangchen Dolma is from Humla. She started out as a day student, but has been moved into the Boarding programme.She needs a little more than 500 US/year.
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B812a Yangchen Dolma girl 9 Class 2
This Yangchen Dolma (from Mugu) also started out as a day student and has been moved into the Boarding
programme, so she also needs about $500/year. |
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B813 Tenzin Norbu boy 7 years Class: UKG
Tenzin Norbu will be fully sponsored next year. This year only, he needs 425 USD.
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