About Our Students - Success Stories- Dawa Thukmo and Dawa Lhamo - Students in the Classrooms -Students' Personal Stories
Scholarship Winners- Preamble - Dawa Dolma - Tsering Dorje Still With Us - Jai Chandra - Phur Tenzin Sherpa and Parsang Sherpa
Tsewang Bhuti Lama - Sonam Dolma Sherpa - Activities-Pilgrimage to Pharping - Kids At Play with Friends - Kid Power Circus
Photos of Circus Day - SMDers Make Their First Audio Recording, "Bring Back Peace" - SMDers Help Street Kids - SMD Graduates

Success Stories: Dawa Gyaltsen

"This is me, Dawa Gyaltsen. I was born as a Hindu Jai Chandra Pandey in the eastern part of the Terai (southern Nepal) called 'Madesh'. We were rich enough there, but my parents wanted to live in the hills, so we left the Terai and settled in the hilly region where we built a hut and bought some domestic animals. We lived there for a few years. We were happy but my older brother started to cough and we learned he had TB. The doctors said it was too late, and that he wouldn't live more than three months. We were very sad. I was just a little kid. After a few weeks he passed away from this green world.

After he died, we left that place and we settled in another village. We stayed there for a few months, but my mother started coughing too. We went for treatment. We spent a lot of money but the disease didn't care. After a few weeks she also passed away.

After that we became very poor and very sad. I used to cook food for my father and my baby sister Radhiga. Later I came to Kathmandu to work in a tea stall to help my father. I think I was about 7 or 8 then. I became friends with some of the kids from Shree Mangal Dvip school, and when I heard what they were doing (learning to read and write) I really wanted to go to school too.

The kids were so kind! They sneaked me into the school and hid me in the dormitory on a top bunk. They brought me food from the dining hall and started to teach me how to read and write, but after 4 or 5 days, they got scared that we would get caught and get into trouble. So some of them went to beg the headmaster to let me stay. He had to say no because there was no sponsor for me, and the school was very poor in those days. So I went back to work in the tea stall.

One day Nancy Phillips came to talk to me. She was the person who looked after sponsorship in those days. The kids had begged her to help me, so she had come to check that I really did want to go to school. Of course, I said "Yes!" and a little while later, I was admitted into the school."

Note: Mr. Pandey, the father became a "kamaiya"...a kind of slave around the time Jai came to school. He was able to keep the little sister Radigha for a few years until he broke his thigh. He received no treatment so ended up lame and unable to be of any use to the farmer he'd been working for. At that point, Mr. Pandey put Radigha into service as a domestic. She was about 6 then. She worked at menial tasks, fetching water, doing laundry and sweeping in return for food and a place to sleep. She got no education.

When Radigha was nearly 10, her employers told her father they could no longer keep her: she was eating too much. Desperately, her father decided to marry her off, in the hope that the man who married her would feed her. Jai had just gone back to the village for the summer break when this happened. He came roaring back to Kathmandu to try to spare his sister from a childhood marriage. Within a week, Radigha was in the school and sponsored. She has been with us for five years. She's doing well.

Five years ago, we also took in Mr. Pandey. He works as a guard at the Annex for small children in return for room and board and a small stipend.

Now 22 years old, Dawa Gyaltsen has been with us from those very early days. In spring 2006, he took refuge (formally became a Buddhist) with Thrangu Rinpoche. Rinpoche gave him the Buddhist name "Dawa Gyaltsen" which is a translation of "Jai Chandra"! Dawa Gyaltsen only took this step after serious reflection...we did not present his request to Thrangu Rinpoche until Dawa had talked over his plan with his father, as Dawa G observed at the time, "Everything good in my life has come because of Buddha Dharma and because of the generosity of Thrangu Rinpoche." There was general jubilation at the school when the news came out.

Dawa Gyaltsen stayed with us so he could finish Grades 11 & 12. He is now finishing his Second Year of university in Kathmandu and is planning to become a teacher. He works half time on his studies and half time as a teacher. This winter, he was promoted to Assistant Hostel Head Teacher. He is on full salary with SMD. We consider Dawa G a "good catch"...he is a gifted teacher, he is fluent in all three languages we use, (Tibetan, Nepal and English) he is a Buddhist, and most of all he has devotion to our founder's aims.